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HISTORY 



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SECOND PAPER. 



DELIVERED BY 



GEORGE H. GORDON, 

MAJOR-GENERAL OF VOLUNTEERS AND COLONEL SECOND MASS. REGIMENT OF 

INFANTRY IN THE LATE WAR, 



ANNUAL MEETING OF THE SECOND MASS. INFANTRY 
ASSOCIATION, ON MAY ii, 1874. 



BOSTON: 

ALFRED MUDGE & SON, PRINTERS, 34 SCHOOL STREET. 

1874. 



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HISTORY 



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SECOND PAPER. 



DELIVBRED BY 



GEORGE R'. GORDON, 

MAJOR-GENERAL OF VOLUNTEERS AND COLONEL SECOND MASS. REGIMENT OF 

INFANTRY IN THE LATE WAR, 



ANNUAL MEETING OF THE SECOND MASS. INFANTRY 
ASSOCIATION, ON MAY ii, 1874. 



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BOSTON: 
ALFRED MUDGE & SON, PRINTERS, 34 SCHOOL STREET. 

1874. 



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THE ADDRESS. 



CHAPTER II. 

At the earnest request of the Association, I have prepared 
a second paper upon the history of our regiment. My nar- 
rative is resumed with the news of our defeat at Manassas. 
I shall tell of the part taken by us from the hour when Gen. 
McClellan began the creation of the Army of the Potomac 
until we marched with him as part of that army for the second 
invasion of Virginia. I shall touch briefly upon the trials 
which resulted in the creation of a well-disciplined army, only 
hinting at the magnitude of the task to which Gen. McClel- 
lan devoted himself with a soldier's experience and a magnetic 
power. It will remain for the -coming historian to declare that 
in this creation the genius of the pupil confronted the skill 
of the master at Appomattox, when Lee surrendered his 
whole army to that Army of the Potomac which grew steadily 
and sturdily from the seed planted by George B McClellan. 

While we were occupying Harper's Ferry as a temporary 
garrison, our regiment furnishing the necessary guards and 
its colonel commanding the fort, a daily paper received on 
the 25th day of July announced that the President of the 
United States had raised Mr. N. P. Banks, late of Massa- 
chusetts, from a private citizen to the rank of a Major-General 
of Volunteers, and had ordered him to relieve Gen. Patterson 
of his command. As a Massachusetts man, I was appealed 
to : What did I think of the truth of this report .'' "It has no 
foundation," I replied. " I have," I added, " a slight acquaintance 
with Mr. Banks, — Governor Banks, as we call him, — and I 
think I can assure you that he has too much good sense and 
good judgment to assume the responsibilities of such rank 



until he has fitted himself in subordinate situations to know 
something of a soldier's profession, — in which," I was about 
to add, " he is now totally inexperienced," when a knock at the 
door of Gen. Patterson's headquarters, where we were in dis- 
cussion, announced a messenger, who brought, with the compli- 
ments of Gen. Banks to Gen. Patterson, the further information 
that in a few moments the former would present himself in 
person, to receive upon his shoulders the heavy burdens which 
were afterwards to be laid upon the Army of the Shenandoah. 

Thus it was that the reign of Patterson within the Depart- 
ment of Pennsylvania was transferred to Banks, who changed 
the designation of the department to that of the Shenandoah. 
It was only one week later that the Army of the Shenandoah 
— with the exception of our regiment — was ordered to cross 
the Potomac, to take up positions in Maryland. We were left 
to garrison Harper's Ferry, our numbers increased by twenty 
cavalry-men under command of a non-commissioned officer. 
The order directing me to hold the outpost of Harper's Ferry 
was dated the 28th of July, but it was followed by another, 
dated the 29th of July, issued from Sandy Hook, in which 
three companies of the Second Massachusetts Regiment, with 
the cavalry detachment, were ordered to remain as a garrison 
at Harper's Ferry, while the remaining companies, with three 
guns of the Rhode Island Battery, to be commanded by the 
colonel of the Second Massachusetts Regiment, were ordered 
to cross the river into Maryland, and take position on the 
western face of the Maryland Heights. 

Transferred to the plateau overlooking the Potomac, from an 
elevation half-way up the mountain, seven companies of our 
regiment were in position to cover the three commanded by 
Lieut.-Col. Andrews at Harper's Ferry. We were in an 
exposed location. Deprived of our tents, we sought shelter 
under leaves and branches. The scene was picturesque so 
long as the leaves were green, and the repose was sweet so 
long as the sticks interwoven with branches remained pliant. 



In furnishing guards from Sandy Hook to Harper's Ferry ; 
in closely watching the mounted scouts of the enemy, who 
occupied the hills beyond Bolivar Heights as soon as our 
troops were withdrawn ; in drilling and in military exercises, 
— the poetry of life began to harden into prose ; the men 
began to grumble. 

There was no longer the excitement of a campaign, to end 
in victory and peace, and ensure our return to homes with the 
green laurels of the victor purchased at an easy price, but 
there wa-s to be moulded the slow and sure conviction that the 
war had just begun ; that home was in the distant and uncer- 
tain future ; that the way now entered upon was to be trodden 
with a spirit and a purpose, in the upholding of which, the head 
was much oftener to be called into counsel than the heart. In 
short, on these Maryland Heights we found that the gay sport 
of an hour had been turned into the grim duty of a life, to be 
performed with all the resolve of the mind, with all the pur- 
poses of the heart, and with a sacrifice of those cherished 
hopes which too many indulged in when we marched gayly for 
the seat of war, — hopes expressed to me by one good woman, 
who said, looking into my face as the full companies of the 
Second were marching out of Camp Andrew on our last morn- 
ing there, " We look to you. Col. Gordon, that you return 
again in safety all these young men to their homes." 

Never were there soldiers who so easily braced themselves 
to the change. The three months' volunteers were now return- 
ing to their homes. This was, to our men, a hard sight to 
bear. At first some of them reproached themselves that they 
had enlisted for the war, then, reasoning with each other, asked 
eagerly if indeed they had. After much questioning, many 
forced themselves to the conclusion that they had not ; and 
then, as if to strengthen conviction, they sang, in a dirge-like 
wail, " We are going home." None who heard will ever for- 
get those mournful sounds as they rose evening after evening, 
when the lamps shone dim through the huts on the Maryland 



Heights. In vain the singers tried to make themselves believe 
that what they sung was to come to pass ; there was no heart 
in the voice, no hope in the heart, and there was despair in 
the tones. It required but the mildest of reproof, and the 
briefest allusion to the history of the enlistment of our regi- 
ment, to dispel forever any further claim on the part of any 
member of the Second Massachusetts Regiment to be con- 
sidered a three months' volunteer. 

That hard work is the best cure for melancholy minds is a 
common experience, in which those who attended daily drills 
under my command will concur. I gave the men no time to 
brood over sorrows, and soon had the satisfaction of seeing 
the regiment as gay and contented as soldiers ever are ; 
for it is to be remembered that the temptation to grumble 
when there is anybody to grumble at, strong in citizens, is 
irresistible in those who cannot depend upon themselves, but 
must rely upon the watchfulness of their officers. Our men 
gave way to this temptation in letters to their friends, through 
whom by mail I received most anxious appeals, — generally, 
however, touching the stomach. 

Says one, dated the 8th August, 1861, after alluding to the 
" patriotic and intelligent constituency " that the company 
he refers to can boast, — "The prayers of this Christian com- 
munity, both private and public, have followed you." " We 
are not ignorant," he continues, " of the fact that many hard- 
ships and privations arc incident to a soldier's life, both in 
the camp and field, but were not prepared to hear that 
some of your command have suffered much for the want of 
food. We had supposed the communication with Baltimore 
and Washington was open, that the Government had supplies, 
and that the quartermaster was honest; and we can hardly 
believe that it has not been the result of accident or necessity. 
Some have purposely disguised their feelings from their friends 
as long as possible, and none would wish to make their com- 
plaints public. They say they arc willing to submit to strict 



discifliue, to fight, and die if need be. but they ean V san.e and 
not eomplain, when the Government is able to feed them. 
They all speak in the highest terms ^i yourself, and generally 
of their company offieers. They say. however, that some of 
the officers in the regiment swear at the men in givmg their 
orders ; use harsh, insulting, and abusive language ; and while 
they have seen men punished severely for tasting liquor given 
to them, or taking a single glass from over the fence some of 
the offieers are too drunk to ' perform their duty. We have 
heard, in confirmation of the above, that while some of the 
retiring regiments eheercel the men of the Second Regiment 
they groaned for the officers. It may not be true. These 
things distress our people much, and I have been almost con- 
stantly besought by those whose friends are in the regiment, 
to write you in relation to them." The writer closes wi h an 
admission that civilians understand but little about mditary 
affairs, and should be very careful not to interfere too much 
but excuses himself because he has written " at the request of 
wives and mothers deeply feeling for their husbands and sons. 
I have given you a picture of the returning regmients who 
groaned at our officers in my last paper, in which I set forth 
such a divergence of opinion as to the conduct and govern- 
ment of a regiment, that I thought it but natural my course 
should have displeased the Pennsylvania volunteers for three 
months ; who, when they groaned, were absolutely marching 
to their homes with the sound of the enemy's guns in their 
ears - turning their faces homeward against the entreaties 
and supplications of their commander. Gen. Patterson, that 
they would remain and strike one blow to prevent, if possible 
the junction of Johnstone with Beauregard at Manassas ; but 
in vain : their time was out, home they would go and home 
they went, on their way groaning at the officers of this regi- 
ment in their disapprobation. It is needless to say tha fo 
any real cause, all the complaints in the letter were as little 
worthy attention as this. 



8 

There was also a letter from a Massachusetts Senator in 
Congress, dated August 12, saying: "Many of your men are 
writing home letters stating they are suffering for food, and 
these letters are having great influence. Can't this be 
righted?" If this honorable Senator had been more of a 
soldier and less of a politician, he would not have asked such 
foolish questions. He would have known that irregularity in 
the supply of food is an inevitable accompaniment of the 
movement of armies, and that the better the soldier the less 
he grumbles at the inevitable. 

But the change in our circumstances from the offensive in 
Virginia to the defensive in Maryland wrought another change, 
which our enemies appreciated. The neighbors of that farmer 
who was paid for green grass and down-trodden fields at our 
first encampment at Martinsburg, had themselves suffered from 
an appropriation of the contents of well-stocked larders at 
their homes. Inspired, therefore, by the success of the Mar- 
tinsburg farmer, and forgetting that the result of Manassas 
effectually dispelled the tender and half-regretful emotions 
with which we had drawn the sword, they made complaints 
and asked compensation for their losses, A Virginian in- 
formed me by letter that, though his ancestors came from a 
line of warriors, even tracing them to one of the generals of 
the time of Canute, the line in later days had tended rather 
to peaceful clergymen than to fighting men : and thus ac- 
counting for the reason why -the descendant of a line of kings 
stoops to sue where he ought to strike ; makes piteous wail 
over losses of butter, cream, vegetables, and ham, over clover 
and wheat and knocked-down shocks, and pickets in his fields ; 
his clover-seed bags were slit with bayonets, their contents 
spilled. " I make no charge," says the writer, " for the provi- 
sions eaten by the men, for I have never been in the habit of 
charging the wayfarer ; but I do complain," he adds, " that 
twenty-four dollars and fifty cents worth of clothing was taken 
from my servant man Peter" ; then there follows as an out- 



9 

pouring of grief, an ejaculation, " None but Wisconsins would 
steal from the poor blacks." It was hardly politic to term us 
gentle tourists or needy wayfarers, or to intimate that Wis- 
consins would steal ; and perhaps that is the reason why the 
complainant was not paid. Another sufferer tried it by 
endeavoring to fix a personal responsibility upon me, but this 
was in Maryland, at Sandy Hook. " Col. Gordon, Dr." the 
bill read. The items varied, but there was a monotonous 
sound of ham, jelly, and pickles ; then there was an item for 
smashing a lock on a closet door ; then something for damages 
to furniture and house. Whoever had the pickles had the 
spree : the Colonel of the Second Regiment had neither. 

From the 30th of July to the 17th of August — now melted 
by fierce heat, and now drenched with rain that poured at night 
in streams from that unmitigated blessing, a rubber blanket ; 
with men and sometimes officers, to-day impatient, grumbling, 
and capricious ; to-morrow docile, earnest, and contented — time 
passed in the gradual acceptance of a discipline which not 
only controlled the habits but exercised an influence even over 
the thoughts. 

By the 17th of August the alarm and excitement from 
an anticipated forward movement of the enemy was on the 
increase. Large numbers of troops at and in the immediate 
vicinity of Washington, to some implied a caution arising from 
knowledge of offensive movements in contemplation, to others 
not so much a knowledge as a conviction of what ought to 
be the movement of our enemy ; and hence the military pro- 
priety of preparing to check what an enemy ought to attempt. 

More than the real result to us, I think, thoughtful men 
feared for complications in our European relations. The 
results of the battle of Manassas were magnified for the trans- 
atlantic public, while lies of immense proportions were set 
afloat by our Northern and Southern foes, becoming huge on 
the regular steamer day. Thus before we left our drenched 

huts on the hill-side, rumors filled the air that Siegel's entire 
2 



10 

command had laid down their arms in Missouri. It was 
rumored in New York that 1,700 of Gen. Banks' command had 
been captured in Northern Virginia, and that Gen. Rosecrans 
was surrounded at Cumberland Gap. These were lies, as I 
have said ; but there were some uncomfortable truths to be 
told, such as that recruiting was going on slowly, that dissatis- 
faction with the present state of things could not be dissipated 
but by a military success. Kentucky declaring for the Union 
after the battle of Manassas was the only bright spot in a very 
dark horizon. 

Sensibly, then, we had begun to feel that the victorious 
armies under Lee would cross the Potomac somewhere from 
Washington to Williamsport. The Northern people generally 
feared the former, despite fortifications on the Virginia side of 
the Potomac, and a single bridge of about a mile in length. 
The guards of the Potomac knew better : the crossing would 
be where there were the fewest obstacles and the least opposi- 
tion ; and then, look out for Washington. 

On the 17th of August we were withdrawn from the western 
slope of the Heights, and though at first the order for with- 
drawal directed me with our regiment to report to Col. George 
H. Thomas, Second Cavalry, commanding First Brigade, who 
was then preparing to move with most of Gen. Banks' command 
for the protection of Washington, a new order, dated the 17th, 
from the General Commanding, informed me that the " Gen- 
eral has determined to leave your regiment in this vicinity for 
a few days longer," and that I would take up a position best 
calculated to protect the ford and not expose the main body of 
my regiment, and that it would be unnecessary to report to 
Col. Thomas as requested last evening. Our new position 
was designated on the i8th as at Sandy Hook, Here once 
more with our tents we were located upon an elevation at the 
foot of the eastern slope of the hill, concealed from the view of 
the enemy and guarding the line of the river from Harper's 
Vcrry to Sandy Hook, a distance of five eighths of a mile. 



11 

The order designating our duty further detailed commanders 
and troops to guard the Potomac from Williamsport on the 
north to the mouth of the Monocacy on the south. Hyatts- 
town, about twenty-six miles from Washington, was to be the 
headquarters of Gen. Banks. , • 

On the 17th, also, Lt.-Col. Andrews was ordered to recross 
the river, bringing with him his whole force and all the flour 
contained in Mr. Herr's most excellent mills. Seven hundred 
barrels of superfine flour were transferred to our side and 
sent to Washington, a large part of 25,ocxd bushels of wheat 
and about i5,ocx) of feed used for horses destroyed. 

Thus the troops in the Department of the Shenandoah 
entered upon their important duties. The morning of the 
17th of August found us sole occupants of the hills and val- 
leys that had so recently resounded with echoes of a multi- 
tude. Where, from many a hill-side, mountain-top, or valley, 
innumerable camp-fires had tendered their ruddy cheer, now 
but a single spot remained covered with tents. The solitude 
was almost desolation in its contrast. 

On the 19th of August our ears were for the first time in 
our regimental life saluted with hostile shots. It was our first 
engagement, and was with a body of rebel cavalry, reported as 
numbering some three or four hundred, accompanied by 
infantry, who had entered Harper's Ferry in time to see their 
seven hundred barrels of superfine flour about starting along 
the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal for Washington city. We 
had a lively time for half an hour firing across the Potomac, as 
return compliments to the salutations of our enemy ; and 
though none of our number were killed, and none that I 
ever heard of were wounded, we enjoyed the usual rewards 
accompanying such excitements, such as many laughable 
incidents, and an unshaken confidence that we had knocked 
two immortal souls into a better world. It was all about the 
flour, of course ; but that did not excuse one of our most 
corpulent young lieutenants for exposing his very large person 



12 

upon both sides of a very small saplinc^, which circumstance 
gave us much to laugh at. But at night the appearance was 
more threatening. For the past two or three clays our senti- 
nels, posted on the precipitate ridges of the Heights along the 
canal, through the tumble-down, slip-shod old town of Sandy 
Hook, had reported that signs of the enemy had been multi- 
plying, that tents, wagons, and camp-fires, with now and then 
bodies of soldiers, had been seen ; and these reports gave day 
by day increased numbers. 

Upon these indications of the proximity of the enemy, I 
made the best disposition I could to repel any attempt to 
cross the river by ford or ferry, or to annoy us from the other 
side. The distance across the river where our pontoon bridge 
had been located was less than one sixth of a mile, — not a 
comfortable distance with long-ranged rifles that kill at a mile 
and a quarter. Two companies, well concealed, covered the 
ford, with a practicable road at their backs across the moun- 
tain, — a road built by Capt. Underwood, of Co. I, to save 
exposure from the fire that an enemy could deliver from the 
commanding eminence upon the Shenandoah side, — deliver 
plumply down upon the tow-path of the canal or the track of 
the railway, where the only possible passage had been chis- 
elled out of the side of the mountain. It was late at night on 
the 19th day of August that I lay down on a bundle of straw 
and single blanket to sleep ; but I had hardly lost myself when 
the officer of the guard ushered a stranger into my tent, bear- 
ing the following dispatch, which I read by the light of the 
officer's lantern : — 

" Col. Gordon, — I am directed by Col. Donnelly to send a messenger to you 
with information that the rebels are marching on Harper's Ferry 6,000 strong. 

" Vours very respectfully, 

" E. F. Brown, 

"Lieut.-Col. Twenty-Eighth Regt. N. Y. V. 
"Berlin, Md., August 19, i86i." 

I put a few hasty questions to the messenger, who apolo- 
gized for his haste, as he must hurry back to his regiment, 



13 

though he believed the dispatch to me to be well founded, from 
recent signs and movements. I remained for a moment alone, 
looking down from the little eminence partially surrounded 
with trees, where my tent stood, upon the thousand sleepers in 
their tents, so still and quiet that the rushing waters of the 
Potomac were audible. The indistinct light of the moon 
revealed the dark sides of the Blue Ridge swelling into most 
gigantic proportions on the Shenandoah shore. The murmur 
of the katydids, mingling with the sweet and solemn voices 
that break on the ear in the deep hush of midnight, and the 
silent camp, so picturesque on the hill-side, whispered of peace 
and tranquillity ; and yet behind those hills, pressing on to our 
unprotected front, were at least 6,000 to our 1,000. I had not 
a single piece of artillery to oppose the many which they could 
bring to cover the ford. With Gen. Banks' column had de- 
parted the three pieces that had threatened Harper's Ferry 
from the other side of the Heights. 

To me, and according to my best judgment, the attempt of 
the enemy to cross the river in my front was probable. It was 
more likely to succeed than if attempted at Washington 
(which was greatly feared by military and unmilitary minds). 
It would have been in entire accord with all military principles 
governing the crossing of rivers defended by an enemy ; for it 
would have been at a practicable ford, the nearest to an objec- 
tive point, — the city of Washington, — and to reach a country 
in which true sympathy would have been found. That it was 
practicable to scale and take these Heights, in the face of a 
good defence, Stonewall Jackson proved one year later, before 
we attacked Lee at Antietam ; and whether wise or otherwise, 
that some commanders do cross rivers at night, rivers too 
that are not fordable, without any consideration of how they are 
to get back again, provided all things do not turn out as it is 
expected and a larger force is encountered than is looked for, 
or they are not supported as they fancy they ought to be, we 
had abundant and melancholy evidence some few weeks later at 



14 

Ball's Bluff, on the Potomac. That this attack was to be met, 
and that I had neither the guns nor the numbers to meet it 
successfully, was my conviction, not less earnest than my 
determination to send for artillery and reinforcements, and to 
get them, if possible, in season to fight with a show of success. 
To give my whole command all the rest I could, I did not call 
a groom, but saddling my horse myself, mounted, and rode 
hastily into that pestilential hole of Sandy Hook, to the tele- 
graph office in the hotel. Buried in profound slumber, it was 
some minutes before I could arouse the operator, and more 
before I could make the stupid warders at the gates of sense 
convey the least intelligence to the brain. Once, however, at 
his instrument, I watched with anxiety for a signal ; the wel- 
come click replied. The wires were not cut, were intact, 
though they skirted the banks of the Potomac for a distance 
of almost twelve miles to the Point of Rocks before turning 
easterly to Frederick. 

Thank God for the wires I devoutly did, for upon them 
depended my relief. 

" Where shall I telegraph ? " asks the operator. 

" To headquarters." 

Rapidly sounds the instrument, as in vain we call for a reply. 

" What 's the matter .? " I ask. 

" Am afraid there 's no night operator," he says. 

" Continue your call ; don't cease," I urge with impatience. 

Rattling away at the instrument resounding through that 
dimly lighted room, and waiting with anxiety, while minutes, 
precious minutes, were passing, for some friendly greeting from 
the outer darkness, a quarter of an hour passes, and no answer 
yet 

" Try some other place," I quickly order. 

" Where, sir ? " asks the operator. 

" Where .'* Some place where we have troops and artillery," 
I answer. " Try Frederick." 



15 

Again sounds that monotonous rattle, and again in vain ; 
no answer. 

" Keep on," I say ; and again no answer. 

" What can you do ? " I urge. 

" I might try Baltimore," he suggests ; "perhaps some one 
is awake there " 

" Well, try Baltimore then." 

" Is this a failure too .-' " I ask, as nothing comes from that 
infernal instrument but that monotonous click, which, to my 
undisciplined ear, varied not in sound. 

" Try some other station in Baltimore then." And again 
that devilish ditty, that galop of the echoes of resounding 
metal. For a few moments it was the same straining vision, 
and the same painful watching for a sound, to be relieved at 
last by the welcome hail, away off in Baltimore, ninety miles 
away, at some distant railroad station. 

" What do you want .'' " asks this blessed imp of lightning as 
he rides through the darkness on a flash of electricity. 

" Is there a night operator within twenty miles of me ? " I 
demand. 

" Yes, at Frederick," he responds. 

" Who is there at Frederick I" I ask. 

" Troops, and Gen. Fitz John Porter," is the reply. 

My fingers ache in sympathy with the late effort of my 
luckless operator to arouse a sentiment of life in Frederick, 
but I try, and at last comes the splutter of this indolent genius, 
who certainly did not claim to be the servant of any lamp or 
ring in my possession, as he cried out, — 

" What do you want .'' " 

" Who is there of our army at Frederick ? is what I want." 

" Gen. Porter," comes to me from the wires. 

It was the work of a moment to ask where he was, and to 
learn that he was sleeping at the hotel ; and then to direct 
that he be immediately informed that I was awaiting at the 
end of the wire an answer to this dispatch : " The enemy, 



16 

numbering 6,000, are marching upon Harper's Ferry, I am 
here with my regiment, but no artillery. If the enemy has 
artillery I cannot hold the place. What shall be done ? 
Answer quickly." 

" I will carry him this dispatch and answer in twenty min- 
utes," replies the operator. It was one o'clock in the morning 
of the 20th of August, — not time enough to make great 
preparation to meet this coming force, whose tramp I could 
almost hear, I fancied, on the shores of the Potomac. I was 
somewhat nervous, I admit ; events of the past few weeks had 
made me so. As patiently as I could, I counted ten of the 
twenty minutes as they passed off into eternity, then twenty 
and thirty, but no reply. " Ask for an answer." 

No response for a moment, and then the cool reply, " I have 
important dispatches to Baltimore, and cannot leave to carry 
your message." To say that I was as mild as a morning-glory 
would be a metaphor, but not a true one. 

Cannot leave in this important moment, at a time when so 
much may depend upon my dispatch ; Frederick twenty 
miles away ; impossible to send from here ; the hours passing 
swiftly on, and no increase to my force ! " Tell him he must 
go," I replied. 

" I cannot," replies the operator ; " he has cut off all commu- 
nication with this place, and will not get my dispatch." 

" Can you jump him," I ask, " to a place beyond ? " 

" Yes, I can reach Baltimore again." 

" Do so, and tell the operator there to tell the operator at 
Frederick that he must deliver my message immediately." 

The faithful slave of the telegraph at Baltimore so promptly 
stirred up that ugly genius of Frederick that in a moment he 
answered, "Now I will go" ; and soon returned with the sleepy 
message from Gen. Porter, that Col. Gordon has his orders. 

Tell him to come down to the telegraph office and talk with 
me," I hurl out into the night on the wings of the lightning ; 
and in a few moments the wires speak, — "Here he comes." 



17 

Then, looking intently into each other's faces though more 
than twenty miles away, we spoke with tongues of fire. I told 
him of the three hundred cavalry and infantry, and scouts seen 
around Harper's Ferry, then of the warning dispatch of the 
six thousand received here an hour since, and that I thought 
it more than probable I should be attacked at daylight. 

" Well," says Porter, " Gen. Banks' instructions are, to dis- 
pute the passage of fords, and if too strongly pressed, to retire 
slowly towards, in this case, Buckeyestown. Col. Donnelly 
has two pieces of artillery, which he is directed to send to you 
if required. Call on Col. Geary to send you two by express 
train. Can the enemy ford the river ? I suggest you send 
your baggage to the rear ; daylight will show the enemy not so 
strong as represented. Send a messenger to Col. Leonard, to 
withdraw towards Boonsboro' and Buckeyestown, and send 
your baggage there ; but don't retire entirely without making 
your enemy feel you ; he will not follow or attack a determined 
front." 

Thus ended our colloquy. It was two o'clock in the morn- 
ing as I bade Gen. Porter good-night, mounted my horse, and 
returned to camp. Cautiously I aroused the field officers and 
communicated to them my dispatches ; then the men were 
awakened, tents struck, horses harnessed, wagons packed, fires 
lighted, and rations cooked. 

Dispatches were sent in various directions ; down the riv^er 
to Col. Donnelly of the Twenty-Eighth N. Y., for artillery, — a 
message carried by Dr. Sargent, who pressingly urged himself 
as a volunteer for a ride of ten miles. In reply. Dr. Sargent 
brought a reply from the Lieut.-Col. Brown who had reported 
the approach of the enemy, that Lieut.-Col. Tompkins of the 
Rhode Island Battery would be sent me, and although this 
would leave them destitute, they would take the chances, etc. 
This dispatch, a curious mixture of ignorance and bravado, 
well illustrated the offspring that newspaper clamor and editor 
generals gave birth to in the earlier stages of our war. Pert 
3 



18 

in proportion to their ignorance, mistaking an assumed indif- 
ference to precautions for real valor, this class failed in all the 
essentials for military success, and were deserted even by 
their impudence in times of trial. 

I also dispatched a messenger to Sharpsburg to Col. Leon- 
ard, acquainting him with the orders received through Col. Por- 
ter for his withdravi^al towards Boonsboro' and Buckeyestown, 
and, further informing him of the dispatches about the enemy, 
asked him to move in my direction that he might aid me if 
necessary ; to which, long after daylight next morning, I re- 
ceived a reply from Col. Leonard, that he understood it would 
be out of his way, in withdrawing towards Boonsboro' and 
Buckeyestown, to come around by Maryland Heights, and 
therefore plainly implied that he would not come. 

I also sent a dispatch to Col. Geary, at Point of Rocks, in- 
forming him of the reported movement of the enemy, and 
that from the entry of a heavy force of rebel cavalry and some 
infantry into the town of Harper's P'erry, I thought there was 
no doubt truth in Lieut.-Col. Brown's dispatch, and asking him 
for two pieces of artillery, for which I would send a train of cars 
if he would return the same with ammunition and artillerists. 

Then having taken all the precautions I could for a proper 
defence if attacked, I threw myself exhausted upon a bundle of 
straw, and fell into a quiet slumber. As the first faint blushes 
of morning showed themselves in the east, I was aroused, and 
prepared for an engagement. Daylight invading the domain 
of night first brought mountain, trees, and camp into more dis- 
tinct view, then touched them with that pallid hue, so often to 
be seen thereafter, so well remembered as the beginning of 
many days in which, before the merciful night closed in, we 
had supped full of many horrors. Then came the sun, the glo- 
rious, beaming, hopeful sun, slowly rising, and touching with 
his golden color the mountain-top, lighting up the gorges, and 
driving with his smiles of peace the darker spirits of the night 
away. 



19 

But still no sound of the expected fray, no reports from 
our watchful sentinels, when lo ! from the summit of the 
Heights, there all quiet in her morning dreams lay Harper's 
Ferry, as much unconscious of the 6,000 strong reported by 
that Lieut. -Col. Brown as if this force had never any other 
existence than in his too excited brain, from whence, in short, 
they may have been conjured up, for there, and there alone, 
were they ever discovered. To say that I was disgusted, 
angry, and mortified is to draw it mildly ; and to say, here and 
now, that I became reconciled only when I made up my 
mind that it was possible my preparations had deterred an 
enemy, if there was any, from an attack. 

It was not long after sunrise when I received an order from 
Gen. Banks, issued the day before, directing me to join my 
regiment to Col. Donnelly's, the two to proceed via Buckeyes- 
town to rejoin their brigades. Ours, under command of Gen. 
Abercrombie, we were informed, was now at Hyattstown, 
where the army would be for the present. Col. Thomas's 
brigade would reach Hyattstown probably to-morrow (the 
2 1 St), the order said. The order then continued: "The 
General wishes this movement to take place as soon as it 
possibly can be effected. Before leaving Harper's Ferry, he 
wishes you to bring off, if you can in a short time, and if not 
to destroy the wheat and mill-stones in the mills at Harper's 
Ferry, provided you can do so without endangering the safety 
of your command." Recommending haste, though not pre- 
cipitation, I was directed to bring off the telegraph instru- 
ments and destroy the wires. 

This order reached me about the same hour that a telegram 
was handed me from Gen. Fitz John Porter, saying that the 
orders I had just received were to go to me last night, but 
hoping if I got a chance I would pitch into the enemy ; that 
Kenly, at Williamsport, was ordered to watch the fords at 
Harper's Ferry, and Geary at Monocacy, and advising, if I 
should go into Harper's Ferry, that I should destroy the mill- 



20 

stones. And there was a telegram from Col. Geary, at Point 
of Rocks, that he was directed not to permit cars to pass that 
point (which he had christened Camp Korpony) should the 
enemy cross, or attempt so to do, above him ; followed shortly 
after by another dispatch from the same officer, announcing 
that he would relieve me to-morrow with a detachment. 

During the remaining hours of the 20th I again entered 
Harper's Ferry, to carry final destruction to Hcrr's flour-mill 
and its contents With the execution of this order Lieut.-Col. 
Andrews was charged. Crossing the Ferry with a small 
force, which he threw out as pickets upon landing, his opera- 
tions were covered with my newly-arrived artillery and addi- 
tional force upon the Heights, the canal, and railroad. How to 
move with the most telling rapidity in the destruction of a 
large mill, I believe Lt.-Col. Andrews has proved most suc- 
cessfully to be, in first determining the point at which the whole 
motive power is applied ; and if this is in a well, as it usually 
is in mills moved by water power, first set in motion with all 
possible force the upright shaft, and then plunge — when at its 
utmost speed, well poised and swift — plunge down an iron bar 
among the cogs that take and impart motion to connecting 
wheels. So did Lt.-Col. Andrews. The crash, resounding 
above the roar of iron wheels, was followed by a tremor as 
when a giant dies from mortal thrust ; and Herr's famous 
flour-mills were useless for the war. A large part of the 
wheat remaining was thrown into the Potomac, and then 
Lt.-Col. Andrews withdrew without molestation. It was not 
until the morning of the 21st of August that I was ready to 
leave for Buckeyestown, at which time we turned our faces 
towards Washington, as a better move for its protection and 
the defence of Maryland. 

Hardly had I withdrawn my artillery from the hill and my 
pickets from the front, when the enemy's pickets swarmed 
into Harper's Ferry. Joining the Twentieth N. Y. Regiment 
at Berlin, we trailed across a country of unbridged streams, 



21 

through which our horses and mules splashed with their bur- 
dens, and over which our men passed in file on trunks of pros- 
trate trees. Houses were small and shaky, and not many of 
them ; negroes were lazy and fat ; and the corn-fields rejoiced 
in gigantic stalks. On the 23d we encamped at the foot of 
a steep hill, in the flourishing village of Hyattstown. We 
had made twenty-one miles in three days. From hill-top to 
valley all around us the ground was dotted with white-roofed 
tents and wagon-tops. It was by the light of the stars that 
we breakfasted on the morning of the 29th of August, and 
prepared to move still farther southward to concentrate for 
the defence of Washington. 

In the afternoon of the 30th of August our regiment, at the 
end of its day's march, turned from the road-side into a field 
within the town of Darnstown. The single farm-house in 
view, with the grounds adjacent, called Pleasant Hill, comprised 
all we could discover of the village ; for the clouds hung densely 
around us, and the earth and sky were moist with rain. We 
were cold, hungry, and tired. In my official capacity I ate a 
supper prepared for another: doubtless my rank saved me from 
a blessing — after the meal. That we were to move forward 
on the morrow I believed, — I did not know where; but 
somewhere, in some position, to take our part in a general 
attack upon the enemy. The morning came and went, and 
we moved not. A week passed ; then a month ; and but few 
days were left of another, and still my tent covered the same 
spot upon which it was pitched upon the first day of our arrival. 
For nearly two months, upon the hills, in the valleys, and along 
the highways of Darnstown, were clustered the camps of our 
division, with their camp-fires at night dotting the ground with 
flame. For almost two months we heard at evening music from 
various regimental bands, as it fell faintly from the distance, or 
swelled in harmony around, until the drum and fife, or the 
bugle-call, breaking forth into the tattoo, announced the hour 
for sleep. From day to day, and from night to night, sound 



22 

and sight repeated itself, until it was not easy to hold in view 
the grandeur of the achievement, in the strife of the spirit, 
with the tedious details of the hour. Even our sentinels, 
watching the Potomac, six miles away from our encampment, 
softened their hostile glances, and swimming across the river 
exchanged friendly conferences and hearty hand-shakes with 
their rebel neighbors. That the round of duties became 
tedious must be admitted : provision returns for pork, beans, 
flour, rice, tea, coffee, et cetera, were presented with unfailing 
regularity ; there was no break in morning reports of present 
and absent, of approvals and disapprovals, of attending reveilles, 
drills, and parades. It was at this camp that our drills began 
to receive almost unmerited attention. 

The confusion into which our battalion seemed to be 
plunged during these simple movements on that bit of ground 
called forth great praise when we were extricated and in line 
again. Who will forget that double column, closed in mass, 
the countermarch and deploy, the changes of front forward 
and to the rear, all at double quick, as, with a snap, lines of 
battle were formed forward, to the rear, to the right, and the 
left ; and who will say that the continually increasing happi- 
ness of our men, their contentment, a thousand-fold greater 
than when on Maryland Heights, was not due to the constant 
praise bestowed upon them for their marked drill and discipline ? 

While our discipline troubled one Massachusetts regiment, 
it excited a spirit of emulation in another. To equal the 
" Gordon boys " in drill and discipline was an aspiration of the 
Thirteenth ; to interfere with our discipline was at one time 
the desire of the Twelfth. When and why is worth narrating : 
Our camps overlooked each other, and were separated by a 
shallow gully. Looking into our camp one morning, soon after 
our arrival, the officers and men of the Twelfth Massachusetts^ 
known as the Webster Regiment, saw one of our privates tied 
up to a tree near the guard-house. To such punishment had 
he been sentenced, for some military oflcnce, by a court-mar- 



23 

tial. He was to be tied up for three clays in succession, an 
hour at a time eacli day. Hardly had this scene met the eyes 
of the Twelfth, when they greeted it with loud shouts of dis- 
approbation. " Cut him down ! cut him down ! " they cried, as 
in a tumultuous body they advanced threateningly towards us. 
In vain did their officers try to control them. For a few mo- 
ments the aspect was threatening. Our guard was promptly 
turned out under arms ; the officers and soldiers of the 
Second calmly awaited the issue. There was but a single ex- 
ception, — a frisky Irishman, probably belonging to Company 
I, leaped once or twice in the air, howling with sympathy ; 
he was promptly knocked down by an officer, and suppressed 
in the guard-tent. At length expostulations prevailed where 
orders were useless. The officers of the Twelfth urged their 
men to desist, and during the remainder of the hour they 
were quiet. 

In the afternoon Col. Webster informed me that if that man 
was to be tied up again in full view of his regiment, he would 
not be responsible for the consequences. " Yes, he could 
control his men," he replied, in answer to my question. 

The man would be tied up in the same place, I assured him. 
" Then I shall take my men out to drill at that hour," he an- 
swered. This assurance on the part of Col. Webster was 
serious. A rush within our lines was possible. Seeing a ruse^ 
suppose they should refuse to go to drill .^ It was very much 
like a mutiny in the division, and was quite time for the Gen- 
eral Commanding to interfere. I laid the matter before him, 
in time for action before the next day's punishment. It was 
quite evident, I insisted, that Col. Webster could not control 
his men ; and it was equally clear these men must be con- 
trolled. The punishment I was inflicting was by sentence of 
a court ; was not cruel. Upon the immediate and utter 
extinction of any such insubordination as had been shown 
by the Twelfth depended whether this division should be an 
army or a mob. 



24 

• 

" You are quite right, sir," replied Gen. Banks. 

" Then, sir, will you order to report to me, to-morrow, at my 
encampment, a squadron of cavalry, and a battery, with author- 
ity to use their arms in the suppression of any mutiny that 
may take place near my camp ? " 

" I will order them," replied Gen. Banks. 

I thanked him, and retired, to meet Col. Webster approach- 
ing General Banks' headquarters for an interview. 

Next morning, and but a few minutes before the appointed 
hour for the execution of the sentence, an orderly delivered 
to me a note from Gen. Banks substantially as follows : — 

Sir, — Since publicity is no part of the sentence of the court-martial in the 
case of the man to be tied up, I would suggest that the remainder of the 
sentence be executed in a less conspicuous place. 

Instantly I directed Major Dvvight to lay before Gen. Banks 
the result of such a concession to a mutinous demand, and to 
protest with all his power against any change whatever in the 
punishment. Major Dvvight returned in a few minutes, to 
say that Gen. Banks, as soon as he had dispatched my 
note, had ridden rapidly away, leaving no word at his head- 
quarters of his movements. It was but a brief time before 
the hour, — not enough to make pursuit of Gen. Banks 
possible. The Commanding General had shirked the respon- 
sibility. Like Halifax, once the notorious Speaker of the 
House of Lords in England, Gen. Banks was a most sagacious 
trimmer. If there was bloodshed, he had suggested a pre- 
vention ; if there was no affray, he had not ordered a concession. 
• Neither battery nor cavalry had reported, and now was the 
hour for the execution of sentence. Sending for the officer 
of the day, I ordered him to make no change in the mode of 
execution of the sentence ; and none was made. At the 
appointed hour, while the sentence was being carried into 
effect in the same place as before, the Colonel of the Twelfth 
Massachusetts Regiment hastily marched his men far out of 
sight or sound of our camp. They returned long after the 



25 

hour had expired, overcome with fatigue, but with not a 
trace of mental laceration through our cruelty. For the 
third time and last, on the third morning, the same expe- 
dient was adopted while the remainder of the sentence was 
executed. 

Almost two hundred years ago, during the reign of the 
Prince of Orange, the people of England looked with appre- 
hension upon the organization of Regulars. 

Macaulay has well portrayed the dangers that threatened 
the country through mobs of undisciplined men calling them- 
selves soldiers. I cannot forbear quoting him : — 

" It was necessary there should be regular soldiers, and it was indispensable, 
both to their efficiency and to the security of every other class, that they should 
be kept under a strict discipline. An ill-disciplined army has ever been a more 
costly and a more licentious militia, impotent against a foreign enemy, and formi- 
dable only to the country which it is paid to defend. A strong line of demarcation, 
therefore, must be drawn between the soldiers and the rest of the community. 
For the sake of public freedom they must, in the midst of freedom, be placed 
under a despotic rule ; they must be subject to a sharper penal code and to a 
more stringent code of procedure than are administered by the ordinary tri- 
bunals. Some acts which in the citizen are innocent, must in the soldier be 
crimes ; some acts, which in the citizen are punished with fine or imprisonment, 
must in the soldier be punished with death. The machinery by which courts of 
law ascertain the guilt or innocence of an accused citizen is too slow and too 
intricate to be applied to an accused soldier. For of all the maladies incident to 
the body politic, military insubordination is that which requires the most prompt 
and drastic remedies. If the evil be not stopped as soon as it appears, it is cer. 
tain to spread, and it cannot spread far without danger to the very vitals of the 
commonwealth. For the general safety, therefore, a summary jurisdiction of 
terrible extent must, in camps, be intrusted to a rude tribunal, composed of men 
of the sword." 

If the opinions of men whose judgment is entitled to great 
consideration may be quoted in defence of the policy we 
adopted for the government of our regiment, I may refer to 
Macaulay's most excellent comments as vindicating our judg- 
ment, when opposed by Governor Andrew at West Roxbury, 
and for a second time by Governor Banks and the Twelfth 
Massachusetts Regiment at Darnstown. 



26 

I now resume our history, to speak first of the portentous 
orders of those clays, — stampedes we called them, — when 
we moved but to halt again upon the land of some unfortunate 
farmer, to trample down his fields, burn his fences, eat his 
harvests, pluck and roast his growing corn, decapitate his. 
geese, drink all his milk, eat all his butter and eggs, and occupy 
all his house and barns. Such cases were grave attacks of 
stampedes, but generally they were of a milder type. It was 
in camp at Darnstown that I was once aroused at midnight 
with the order, " Get your command in immediate readiness 
to move, but don't wake your men until further orders," upon 
which I proceeded to put myself in immediate readiness by 
pulling on my stockings, after which, overpowered with sleep, 
I was aroused by the bright daylight to the consciousness of 
another stampede. 

When the advancing season brought cold nights after hot 
days, when the murky atmosphere of fall rested upon the 
hills, and the soft Indian summer began to lay hold of the 
landscape, there fell upon us storms, in which the strong winds 
swayed our tents, struggling with the flimsy fastenings. Can 
we ever forget the crashing of the thunder, the glare of the 
lightning, and the moaning of the tempest, as the big drops 
pelted our frail covering, and the clouds brooded over us with 
a deeper than Egyptian darkness, — this war of nature, with a 
whole army enfolded in the arms of sleep, patriot and rebel, 
on each side of the dividing Potomac, while the sentinels of 
both armies cowered beneath the storm .-' If ever a feeling of 
awe steals into the human soul, it is in the presence of ele- 
mental powers ; and there, in such presence, while we were 
emulating the powers of nature with our engines of destruc- 
tion, I could, for one, only raise my thoughts, in the midst 
of the storm and the power and the on-coming carnage, pray- 
ing that God, great, good, and beneficent, might bear me 
bravely on. 

It was easy in those days to arouse that spirit of obedience 



27 

to the will of the Lord which, rather than adventure, leads 
men to deeds of noble daring. It was easier to move the cold 
nature of our New England men by exhortation than by 
allurement ; they were rather Puritans than Cavaliers : and 
what Puritans can do when their blood is thoroughly up has 
been proved on many fields of battle. 

It was on the 22d of September, on Sunday, that our 
honored friend and associate, the Rev. Dr. Lothrop, while on a 
visit to our camp, preached to our regiment in the front yard 
of the single house near our encampment at Darnstown. 

The enclosure was crowded with companies of our regiment. 
The road beyond and the edge of the adjacent field was filled 
with men from the division, silent and attentive. Out of his 
heart the preacher spoke, as if inspired. How could he speak 
otherwise .'' There on either side of that river, where repose the 
ashes of the Father of his Country, there almost within sight 
of Mount Vernon, were the citizens of a common country gath- 
ered in arms for the attack and defence of that capital which 
bears the name of the immortal Washington. On that same 
Sunday morning, with our common glory a common inheritance 
there, on the other bank of the Potomac, were ministers of the 
Gospel casting their eyes upward to God in prayerful petition 
for success in what they claimed to be a cause as holy as this 
in which we were engaged. It was not strange that the spirit 
which animated our ancestors fell upon us at that hour ; it 
was not strange that we believed ourselves a chosen people, 
divinely commissioned to slay the sinners on the other side cf 
our dividing Jordan. The Stars and Stripes were invested 
with a sanctity that made them the ark of the covenant of the 
Lord, — a banner before which the waters should again roll back 
their flood, as they did before the high-priests of eld. Under 
the passionate exhortation of that Sunday morning we went 
back to our encampment, our ears ringing with the words 

•V, 

which God aforetime spoke to Joshua, — "Havel not com- 
mended thee .'' Be strong, and of good courage ; be not afraid, 



28 

neither be thou dismayed; for I the Lord thy God am with 
thee whithersoever thou goest." 

On the 26th of September my command was increased by 
four other regiments and a Rhode Island Battery, The regi- 
ments were the Fifth Connecticut, Nineteenth and Twenty- 
Eighth New York, and Forty-Sixth Pennsylvania. I held this 
command for two weeks, but this was long enough to contrast 
their discipline with ours. Upon my first visit to the Forty- 
Sixth Pennsylvania, I found one sentinel sitting down on his 
post, while another, as I galloped towards him, whipped his 
musket across both shoulders and dashed up and down, 
imitating quite creditably my horse's gallop, but with such a 
great grin of fun and good-nature that I laughed without 
control. Here, too, I found, in anticipation of the coming 
movement no doubt, dressed in full uniform and enrolled as a 
soldier, regularly mustered into the service, a young woman 
of about eighteen years of age. She had been in the regiment 
about a month ; until within a day or two there had been 
no suspicion of her sex. I am not aware that her presence 
tended to elevate the standard of character in her company. 
She could smoke a pipe, and swear like a veteran. I ordered 
her to be discharged, for which I may yet be denounced and 
politically doomed. 

It was here too that (Congress having enacted that a band- 
leader should receive the pay and allowances of a second 
lieutenant of infantry) the Governor of Connecticut sent a 
commission of second lieutenant to the leader of Col. O. S. 
Ferry's regiment, the Fifth Connecticut. The colonel, appeal- 
ing to me, asked what he should do. " Shall I consider the 
band a quasi company, he asks, under orders of a second lieu- 
tenant .'' The band-leader says, Gen. Banks tells him his office 
is that of second lieutenant, but his functions must be limited 
to the band. What becomes of the drum-major .'' If I am 
ordered to detail an officer on signal service, can I detail the 
ba.id-leader } Does a band-leader become a second lieutenant 



29 

because his pay is designated to be the amount received by 
a second lieutenant of infantry, any more than the other mem- 
bers of the band become sergeants and corporals of engineers, 
whose pay they draw ? " I believe that band-leader pranced 
around in shoulder-straps for a time, but he was never suffered 
to consider himself a second lieutenant. 

And it was at our camp in Darnstown that the exasperated 
soldier of a regiment of volunteers, tied to a wagon-tail, by 
order of the major of his regiment, for insubordination and 
drunkenness, gnawing off his thongs, with his musket shot the 
major dead, just as they were passing our encampment. For 
this act the soldier was tried by a Court, sitting on our grounds, 
of which Major Wilder Dwight was President. 

On the 7th of October, in observance of a day of fasting and 
prayer which the President of the United States had suggested, 
the whole division moved to a field, where, formed in close 
columns of battalions, they stood with uncovered heads before 
a stand, from which, after prayers, a sermon by our chaplain 
was delivered. Then, accompanied by all the regimental 
bands, a mighty sound rolled upward in the majestic strains 
of Old Hundred, as with united voice the whole division sung 
these verses written for the occasion : — 

ARMY HYMN. 

Air. — Old Hundred. 

O Lord of Hosts, Almighty King I 
Behold the sacrifice we bring ! 
To every arm Thy strength impart, 
Thy Spirit shed thro' every heart. 

Wake in our breasts the living fires, 
The holy faith that warmed our sires. 
Thy hand hath made our nation free : 
To die for her is serving thee. 

Be Thou a pillared flame to show 
The midnight snare, the silent foe ; 
And when the battle thunders loud, 
Still guide us in its moving cloud. 



30 

God of all nations, sovereign Lord ! 
In Thy dread name we draw the sword ; 
We lift the starry flag on high 
That fills with light our stormy sky. 

From treason's rent, from murder's stain, 
Guard Thou its folds till peace shall reign, — 
Till fort and field, till shore and sea 
Join our loud anthem, Praise to Thee ! 

So long had we now been located in one spot that our camp 
began to grow into a tawdry kind of village : we had trades- 
men with their shanties, tempting our troops with pies, cakes, 
and soap ; daguerrean saloons, — small black boxes, covered 
with tarpaulins ; and a marvellous structure erected by our 
wagon-master. It was a shelter with a roof handsomely 
thatched, and large enough to protect the sixty or seventy 
horses belonging to us, that had been shivering in the chill 
nights. Such ])reparations gave assurances of permanency ; 
but who can tell where to-morrow a soldier will dwell .'' 

" Lo, there the soldier, rapid architect ! 
Builds his light town of canvas, and bustles momently 
With arms and neighing steeds and mirth and quarrel. 
The motley market fills ; the road, the streams 
Are crowded with new freights ; trade stirs and hurries. 
But on some morrow's morn all suddenly 
The tents drop down, the horde renews its march. 
Dreary and solitary as a church-yard, 
The meadows and down-trodden seed flat lie. 
And the year's harvest is gone utterly." 

On the 13th of October I relinquished command of my 
brigade, again assuming command of our regiment. The 
weather was cold, but with burrowing in the ground and 
blankets we were warm. While the people were crying, " On 
to Richmond !" the men were making ovens. In these rude 
affairs all kinds of cooking was performed, — meat roasted, 
pork and beans and bread baked, and a half-barrel of dough- 
nuts cooked at once for a single company. 



31 

But the people were impatient. Newspaper editors were 
clamorous ; all our Dames were Ouickleys ; the country was 
indifferent to Napoleon's maxim, " Never fight unless the 
advantages of victory are much greater than losses by defeat." 
Another defeat at Manassas might involve fatal results, so 
McClellan's policy was one of extreme caution. In the mean 
time fleets were being prepared to descend upon the Southern 
sea-coast, and keep some of the Southern soldiers farther south 
than in Virginia, And still we waited, and the still cold weather 
came on apace, to make us shiver o' nights, and swallow a 
great deal of smoke over wood-fires in front of our tents. 
Some of our officers grumbled because for many days they had 
not seen a looking-glass. It was drill, drill, drill ; some read- 
ing of military books ; a great deal of reading of the news- 
papers, a great deal of imagination, and a vast deal of hope. 

There was much speculation in our camps : would the en- 
emy cross the river ? Was this delay that McClellan might 
strengthen his position, raise the depressed spirits of our men, 
and add real solidity to our army .-* See, said some, what 
made the disaster of Bull Run possible, — soldiers without 
drill, their time of enlistment expiring ; soldiers who did not 
enlist to fight, but to brag ; men without discipline, not caring 
a rush for their officers. Their blood was not aroused, for they 
did not believe us to be really at war with a merciless and 
resolved rebel force ; so they walked on tiptoe where should 
have been a ringing tramp. Against such a condition of 
things, it was urged, McClellan will provide ; he is fortifying 
himself at Washington, on the west at Alexandria, and on the 
north, within eighteen miles of us, at Tennallytown ; he will 
not leave Washington defenceless. 

On the 19th of October five of our friends from Boston 
dined with us at the headquarters' mess-table, — Messrs. Sid- 
ney Bartlett, William Amory and son, Jefferson Coolidge, and 
F. D'Hauteville. The dinner we gave them is, I am told, still 
fragrant in their memory. If I had informed our sympathizing 



32 

and pitying friends at home of the four chickens happily 
roasted, of the tenderly-boiled leg of mutton and its rich sur- 
roundings of butter sauce, of the sweet and Irish potatoes, of 
the tomatoes, Indian pudding, and whiskey and water that 
made up the fare of the suffering soldier in the field, I fear the 
" New York Tribune " would have howled " Onward to Rich- 
mond ! " with more relentless energy than ever before. 

At this date, too, a rumor reached us that there had been 
a fight at Harper's Ferry, with a report that a Col. Ashby, as 
prisoner, had just passed through our camp to headquarters. 
Nine days before, our Capt. Tompkins, commanding the 
Rhode Island Battery at Sandy Hook, had written me that 
there were fourteen hundred rebels at Halltown with two 
twelve-pounders, and that a Major Gould wished him to take 
his guns over to-day. " As the river is very high," writes the 
captain, " should we, under such circumstances, be obliged to 
retreat, we shall have a rough time of it." This was about all 
there was to the whole rumor. The captain had more wisdom 
than the major. Had it been otherwise, the lesson of crossing 
an unfordable stream to attack a superior force, relying upon 
artillery, with no bridge or preparation to return in case of 
defeat, — this lesson might have saved us that experience 
which, coming from a similar attempt at Ball's Bluff eleven 
days later, filled the country with horror. 

If they served no other purpose, these rumors made our 
officers groan with impatience. They grumbled because 
they were to have no chances, and finally, impatience bursting 
the bonds of reason, they initiated the movement which after- 
wards resulted in a petition to the General Government to be 
permitted to fight something, somewhere or somehow. This 
ardent zeal, born of inexperience, was simply the outburst of 
high-toned men, who, having come from their homes to accom- 
plish something as soldiers, were much afraid the war would 
cad and none of the Second Massachusetts be able to 
shoulder his crutch and show how fields were won. Alas for 



33 

Winchester and Cedar Mountain, Antietam and Gettysburg ! 
While we may exclaim, " O blindness, to the future kindly 
given," we may, we do rest assured that if even there any true 
prophet had lifted the veil and pointed to the shadows of 
coming events, Mudge would still have rung out, as he threw 
himself at the head of his regiment, to die at Gettysburg, 
" Forward the Second ! It is murder, but it is an order." 
Dwight would still have traced with fainting hand, as his life- 
blood was wasting away at Antietam, " I think I die in victory." 
Shaw would still have moved forward, though before him had 
opened the path which, later, led to his noble death on the 
parapet of Wagner. Savage, Abbott, and Gary ; Williams, 
Goodwin, and Perkins, would not have faltered if before them 
had been mirrored their own silent forms clasped in the cold 
embrace of death on the field of Cedar Mountain ; nor would 
the rank and file that made so rich the history of the Second, 
with their sublime courage, on many historic fields, — nor 
would they have put the cup away from their lips, but would 
have drunk it even to the very dregs. 

It was on the 21st day of October that an order, is- 
suing from Gen. Banks, to hold ourselves in readiness, with 
five days' rations, cooked and uncooked, and to report for 
orders to Brigadier-Gen. Hamilton, commanding Second 
Brigade, was followed within a short time by a note from that 
officer to move at once without baggage, leaving a guard to 
come on with tents, baggage, rations, etc. " You will take the 
^ead ; the other regiments will follow. Wait for me at Pools- 
ville," was the hasty ending. At the same time a private note 
from Major Copeland thought I " would like to know that 
Gen. Stone and his army were at Leesburg, with very little 
fighting." 

It was nine o'clock at night that we turned hurriedly from 
the warmth of the huge fires that were, devouring the super- 
fluous fixtures of our late residence, to file out from the ruddy 

glare into darkness, and take the road to Poolsville, distant 
5 



u 

about eight miles. Our course was westerly and towards the 
most distant point in the abrupt bend of the Potomac at Con- 
rad's Ferry. Until we reached Poolsville, which was one 
o'clock in the morning of the 22d, I had no definite idea of 
the purpose of our march. That Gen, Stone had crossed into 
Virginia, and that we were to follow and sustain or co-operate, 
was my belief; but now came the first droppings of disaster : 
dark figures standing by the road-side muttered, as we passed, 
about entire defeat in a fight that had lasted all day ; then 
came rumors of the death of Col. Baker, commanding, and 
the report that his body was lying in the house, just discer- 
nible in the darkness, by which our column was passing; then 
followed, — " Driven back across the river ; the Twentieth 
Regiment, Col. Lee, and the Fifteenth Regiment, Col. Devens, 
entirely cut up," etc. etc. Paying but little heed to this not 
exhilarating information, I pushed on a few miles farther, to 
encounter more positive evidence of disaster, — men half 
naked, hatless, shoeless, hastening in the pouring rain towards 
Poolsville, exclaiming as they rushed by, " We are defeated 
with immense loss ; our regiment is cut to pieces ; Col. Lee is 
a prisoner. Col. somebody killed, and Col. somebody else try- 
ing to hide away in a hay-stack." Then came indignant pro- 
tests : " They outnumbered us ten to one. Shame to put us in 
such a position ! " Then came strong adjectives condemning 
souls to nameless places. Then more, recitative, " We had 
to take to the water and swim, and they shot us while swim- 
ming ; many men are drowned. We got the best of them the 
first part of the day, but they received reinforcements in large 
numbers, and we could n't. Col. Devens told us to save our- 
selves ; took off his boots, said ' I 'm going to swim for it, 
boys. I 've done all I can for you,' and he escaped." 

As we pushed forward, the crowd of disorganized and 
shivering fugitives that trailed to the rear became greater. 
Occasionally there were plucky exclamations, and congratu- 
lations that our column was passing, " And if we had only had 



35 

them fellers an hour or two ago, we would have thrashed 
them." As daylight began to break through the heavy clouds, 
we came to the river at Conrad's Ferry, a little less than four 
miles from Poolsville. Three motionless forms, wrapped in 
blankets, were being buried by their comrades, as we halted 
by their graves. Wearied with fatigue and shivering with 
cold, unsheltered from the pitiless rain that continued to fall 
in torrents, we saw the wretched daylight break upon a 
closing scene over which the elements themselves seemed 
to brood in sympathy. Our march had ended, and now from 
many living witnesses the stories of the fugitives were 
corroborated. 

The circumstances that gave rise to the battle of Bail's 
Bluff, and the main features of that massacre, belong to this 
story, and may be told in a few words. 

Gen. Charles P. Stone commanded what he called a corps 
of observation, on the Maryland side of the Potomac River. 
His pickets extended from the mouth of the Monocacy, on the 
north, to meet with those of Banks' division on the south. 
Stone occupied Poolsville as his headquarters. Between the 
20th and 22d of October Gen. McCall had advanced from the 
Army of the Potomac on the right bank of that river as far as 
Drainsville, his object being to ascertain the number and in- 
tentions of the enemy at Leesburg. In co-operating with this 
movement Gen. Stone sent a large force to Edward's Ferry, 
and increased the command at Harrison's Island. At Edward's 
Ferry, three miles from Poolsville, Gen. Stone made a feint ot 
crossing the river, on the 20th, at one o'clock, p. m. Several 
boat-loads of troops crossed and recrossed, lines of troops were 
deployed on the Maryland shore, as if preparatory to embarka- 
tion, while batteries opened with shells upon a regiment of the 
enemy's infantry that appeared from the direction of Leesburg. 

Between six and seven p. m. of the same day, Lieut. Church 
Howe, Quartermaster of the Fifteenth Massachusetts Regi- 
ment, commanded by Col. Charles Devens, was seen crossing 



36 

the river from Harrison's Island to the Maryland shore, where, 
mounting his horse, he galloped rapidly away in the direction 
of Edward's Ferry. At this time the Island was occupied by 
one company of Col, Devens's regiment, commanded by Capt. 
Philbrick. From Poolsville to the Potomac opposite Harrison's 
Island is about five miles. From the Maryland to the Virginia 
shore at this point is 4,290 feet, or a little over three fourths 
of a mile. In the middle of the river is Harrison's Island ; 
where the troops crossed it, it is about 1,650 feet in width, and 
this leaves for the river itself, between the Maryland shore and 
the Island, a width of 1,320 feet : to the Virginia shore from 
the Island the width is about the same. 

Earlier in the day, at about two p. m.. Col. Lee, command- 
ing the Twentieth Massachusetts Regiment, in camp near 
Poolsville, received orders from Gen. Stone to proceed with 
all his command, save a camp-guard, to the tow-path of the 
canal opposite Harrison's Island, where he would receive fur- 
ther orders. At six p. m., Col. Lee, with 318 men, arrived at 
the place designated. About one hour (to wit, at seven p. m.) 
after Lee's arrival. Col. Devens. with four companies of his 
regiment, arrived at the same point, and immediately began 
throwing them over to the Island. This was effected by a 
scow that carried forty men at a trip, and by a yawl that would 
hold eight or ten men besides the rowers. The scow was 
hauled across by a line between the Maryland shore and the 
Island. Up to this time troops had been moved with a gen- 
eral view of co-operation from Harrison's Island ; but Gen. 
Stone, in his official report, does not claim that any plan 
of action had been determined on, or that it was his inten- 
tion to cross into Virginia from that Island. It probably 
was not. It is fair to assume that Quartermaster Church 
Howe initiated the movement. At ten o'clock at night this 
officer reappeared at the tow-path opposite Harrison's Island, 
bearing dispatches from Gen. Stone to Col. Devens. These 
dispatches were unsealed, and as they came first by Col. Lee, 



37 

that officer read them by the light of a pine torch. Col. Dev- 
ens was ordered to cross from Harrison's Island into Virginia 
in the course of the night. Why and for what, appears from 
Gen. Stone's official report, in which he says, " At ten p. m. (it 
was probably a little earlier), Lieut. Howe, Quartermaster of 
the Fifteenth Massachusetts, reported that scouts under Capt, 
Philbrick had returned to the Island, having been within one 
mile of Leesburg, and there discovered on the edge of the 
woods an encampment of thirty tents ; that there were no 
pickets out ; and that he (Capt. Philbrick) approached to within 
twenty-five rods without being even challenged." 

It is not known by whose orders this movement was made 
by Capt. Philbrick. Gen. Stone does not report that it was 
made by his orders. Was it through Church Howe's zeal .'* 
So far as it appears, so important a movement, one that 
involved such serious consequences, is without a responsible 
father. 

The order then continued : Col. Devens would march 
silently under cover of night to the position of the camp 
referred to, attack and destroy it at daybreak, pursue the 
enemy lodged there as far as would be prudent, and return 
immediately to the Island. Col. Devens was further ordered 
to make close observation of the position, strength, and move- 
ments of the enemy ; but in the event of there being no 
enemy there visible, to hold on in a secure position until he 
could be strengthened sufficiently to make a valuable recon- 
noissance. To replace the troops on Harrison's Island, thus 
to be used by Col. Devens, Col. Lee was ordered to cross 
his command over to the Island, and further received orders to 
send one hundred men to the Virginia side of the river, where 
he was to occupy the bluffs on its immediate shore, and cover 
the retreat of Col. Devens, should he be obliged to fall back. 
Col. Lee's whole command was three hundred and eighteen 
men. At the same time, apparently in contemplation of turn 
ing Devens's movement into a reconnoissance, orders were sent 



38 

to Col. Baker, commandinj^ a regiment called the First Cali- 
fornia, to send that regiment to Conrad's Ferry, to arrive there 
at sunrise of the 21st, and have the remainder of his brigade 
ready to move early. The remainder of the Fifteenth Regi- 
ment, under command of Licut.-Col. Wood, was also ordered 
to be on the tow-path of the canal opposite Harrison's Island 
at daybreak. Two mountain howitzers, in charge of Lieut. 
French, of Ripley's Battery, were also ordered to be at the 
same place at the same time. Towards morning of the 21st, 
Col. Devens began the crossing of his five companies. All 
told, his force numbered three hundred and fifty men. The 
means available for crossing were two boats, one a metallic 
life-boat, capable of carrying ten or twelve men at a time, the 
other a common flat-bottomed boat, used for ducking pur- 
poses, and capable of carrying from six to eight men if closely 
stowed. In two or three hours. Col. Devens with his com- 
mand had been transferred to the Virginia shore. Then Col. 
Lee, with two companies, numbering one hundred and one 
men, crossed for the duty designated in the order. It was 
about five o'clock in the morning of the 21st of October, not 
yet daylight. From the water's edge the bluff rose at an 
angle of 30° for one hundred feet before reaching the plateau 
above. Climbing the zizzag foot-path. Col. Lee reported to 
Col. Devens that his command was in position. Directly 
in their front, and less than two miles and a half away, was 
Leesburg. An indistinct cart-path, some ten or twelve feet 
jn width, led towards it. 

Along this path, through the woods, Col. Devens started at 
once to execute his orders. Col. Lee then covered his own front 
and flanks with small scouting parties, composed of a non- 
commissioned officer and two men to each. It was half-past 
seven a. m. when firing was heard on Col Lee's right rear, — 
a half-dozen discharges, — ^and the sergeant of the party came 
in wounded. A half an hour later a regular volley was heard 
in front, succeeded by an irregular fire, the whole over in a 



39 

few minutes, after which wounded men from Col. Devens's 
command made their appearance on the cart-path, emerging 
from the woods in front. The attack upon Col. Lee's scouting 
party and upon Col. Devens's battalion was by a single com- 
pany of the Seventeenth Regiment Mississippi Infantry, com- 
manded by a Capt. Duff. On the Saturday previous, this 
company, which had been on picket duty on the Virginia 
shore, had been sent to Harper's Ferry, and now, returning to 
resume its duty and reinstate the pickets, stumbled first upon 
the unexpected scouts of Lee, whom, carefully reconnoitering, 
they plumped squarely upon Devens with his command in 
line, and fired, receiving the return volley described. 

Nothing more happened until about nine o'clock, when Col. 
Devens's battalion appeared, marching by a flank. The com- 
mand halted in the open space occupied by Col. Lee, and 
there they remained about twenty minutes, when Col. Devens 
said to Col. Lee that he intended to return again to the front 
for the purpose of recovering his dead ; saying which, he again 
at once disappeared, removing to his former position, which was 
between a half mile and a mile from the bluff. Very early 
in the morning, before any firing had taken place. Col. Devens 
had found that the scouts had been deceived as to an enemy's 
camp ; in the uncertain light they had mistaken openings 
between trees for tents. Inasmuch, then, as Col. Devens had 
not found the enemy he expected, he seems to have remained 
where he was, in pursuance of the final part of Gen. Stone's 
order, " to hold on in a secure position until he could be 
strengthened sufficiently to make a valuable reconnoissance." 
Soon after the return of Col. Devens, Quartermaster Church 
Howe again appeared upon the scene. Crossing from Harri- 
son's Island and climbing the bluff, and saying that he came 
as one of Gen, Stone's staff officers, he inquired of Col. Lee 
about the position. Col. Lee told him to report to Gen. 
Stone, that the troops ordered by him into Virginia had occu- 
pied the river shore ; that they numbered about four hun- 



40 

dred men ; that Col. Devens had about thirty rounds of am- 
munition for each man, and that Col. Lee had forty rounds ; 
that the troops were without subsistence ; and that if the 
Government designed to fight a battle and occupy the Virginia 
shore permanently, reinforcements, with commissary and sub- 
sistence stores, were necessary. Lieut. Church Howe desired 
Col. Lee to go with him to see Col. Devens, but that officer 
replied that his orders required him to hold the bluff to cover 
the retreat of Col. Devens, and that he could not leave ; upon 
which Quartermaster Howe went to the front alone : soon 
reappearing with an escort, he recrossed the river. Howe 
reported to Stone, as soon as he could reach him, that Col. 
Devens had found no enemy — meaning, probably, no tents — 
as reported, but that he had concealed his force in a piece of 
woods, and was examining the space between that and Lees- 
burg. Stone at once ordered a non-commissioned officer with 
ten cavalrymen to report to Devens, " to scour the country." 
At the same time he ordered Lieut.-Col. Ward to cross into 
Virginia with the remaining companies of the Fifteenth Regi- 
ment, " move to the right, on to Smart's mills, to protect 
Devens's flank," when he should return ; and " secure a cross- 
ing more favorable than the first, and connected by a good 
road with Leesburg." As ordered, the cavalry, — number- 
ing, however, only six men, — with Capt. Candy, Assistant 
Adjutant-General on Gen. Lander's staff, in command, came 
across the river and joined Col. Lee on the bluff. At this 
time there had been no change in affairs. The cavalry, with- 
out performing its designated duty, having proceeded no further 
than the bluff, went back again to the Maryland side. By 
eight o'clock in the morning of the 21st, Major Revere, of the 
Twentieth Massachusetts Regiment, had succeeded in getting 
the scow that Col. Devens had used as a transport from the 
Maryland shore to Harrison's Island around the north part of 
the Island, for use in transporting troops to the Virginia 
shore. This was of material aid in crossing the additional 



41 

troops. It was now between half-past eleven and twelve a, m. 
Some rations of hard bread and pork and fifty empty boxes 
had been sent to Col. Lee. The officer who brought the lat- 
ter told the Colonel they were to be filled with earth and laid 
up to form an entrenched position. Col. Lee ordered the two 
mountain howitzers, under command of Lieut, French, of Co. 
I, First United States Artillery, to be sent over ; and as they 
had been ordered to report to him on the 20th, and were then 
on Harrison's Island, they came immediately. Between half- 
past twelve and one o'clock, Lieut.-Col. Ward, with the 
remainder of the Fifteenth Massachusetts Regiment, appeared 
on the Virginia bluff", and immediately proceeded to the front 
to join Col. Devens, instead of executing the orders of Gen, 
Stone. 

We now return to Col. Baker, who, having accompanied the 
California Regiment to the tow-path off" Harrison's Island, pro- 
ceeded in person to Edward's Ferry, and reported to Gen, 
Stone that the remainder of his brigade was ready to march. 
He was ordered to Harrison's Island to assume command. 
Gen, Stone says in his report that he was " anxious to ascer- 
tain the exact position and force of the enemy in our front, and 
to explore as far as it was safe on the right towards Leesburg, 
and on the left towards Leesburg and the gum-spring road." 
Col, Baker was to judge, so Stone says, of the sufficiency of 
the mode of crossing the river into "Virginia with his command, 
which might consist, if he desired to use them, of all the 
troops under Cols, Devens and Lee, and in addition the guns 
of a section each of Vaughn's and Bunting's Batteries, and 
all the troops of his own brigade ; and Gen, Stone continues, 
" I left it to his discretion, after viewing the ground, to retire 
from the Virginia shore under cover of his guns and the fire of 
the large infantry force, or to pass over reinforcements in case 
he found it practicable and the position on the other side 
favorable. If he passed artillery across the river, he was to 
see it supported by good infantry ; and I pointed out to him 
G 



42 

the position of blufifs on this side the river from which artillery 
could act with effect on the other ; and leaving the matter of 
crossing more troops or retiring what were already over to his 
discretion, I gave him entire control of operations on the right. 
This gallant and energetic officer left me about nine a. m., or 
half-past nine, and galloped off quickly to his command." And 
again says Stone: "Messengers from Harrison's Island in- 
formed me, soon after the arrival of Col. Baker, that he was 
crossing his whole force as rapidly as possible, and that he had 
caused an additional fiat-boat to be rafted from the canal, into 
the river." * 

About one o'clock, p. m.. Col. Baker, making his appearance 
on the bluff, inquired for Col. Lee, to whom, as he was pointed 
out, he introduced himself as " Col. Baker." " Have you 
reported to take command.?" inquired Col. Lee. "I have," 
Col. Baker replied, and then added, " And I congratulate you, 
sir, upon a battle upon the soil of Virginia." Col. Baker then 
asked as to the whereabouts of Col. Devcns, and was told that 
he was half a mile or more in front of that position. Asking 
for a volunteer to communicate with him, a sergeant stepped 
out, and was sent off with a message directing Col. Devens to 
fall back to the bluff About this time one field-piece drawn 
by six horses, a piece of a R. L Battery, in charge of Lieut. 
Branhall, of the Ninth N. Y. Battery, came upon the field. 
The gun was unlimbered, horses and limber passed to the 
rear, to the edge of the bluff, a distance of forty or fifty feet. 
Between twelve and one o'clock the enemy had appeared in 
some force in front of Devens, and a sharp skirmish had en- 
sued. Being unsupported, the Colonel had fallen back to a 
piece of woods about half a mile in front of Lee's position on 
the bluff, and here he remained unmolested until he fell back, 
as ordered. 



* To take the place of the one removed by Major Revere to the west side of 
the Island during the night. 



43 

Col. Baker, dismounting from his horse and hanging his 
cape cloak upon a tree, now proceeded to form his line of 
battle. As the Fifteenth came in, moving by companies, he 
formed his right centre on the north of the cart-path, and 
parallel to it. It consisted of the Fifteenth Massachusetts 
Regiment and one company of the Twentieth Massachusetts. 
A portion of this line, thrown back on its right at a right 
angle to the main body, consisting of three companies of the 
Fifteenth Massachusetts and the company of the Twentieth 
Massachusetts, was under the command of Major Kimball, of 
the Fifteenth. The six-pounder gun, with a portion of the 
Twentieth Massachusetts Regiment and two companies of 
the California Regiment, constituted the centre ; while a little 
in advance and perpendicular to the cart-path on its southerly 
side, two other companies of the California Regiment, two of 
the Forty-Second New York, and one of the Twentieth Mas- 
sachusetts, under command of Lieut.-Col. Wistar, of the Cali- 
fornians, made the left wing in the line of battle. Three 
companies of the Twentieth Massachusetts Regiment consti- 
tuted the reserve ; they were opposite the centre and close 
to the edge of the bluff. Seven companies of Col. Lee's regi- 
ment were in the fight. The mountain howitzers were placed 
on the right of the main body of the Fifteenth Massachusetts, 
under Col. Devens. These dispositions made, Col. Baker, 
turning to Col. Lee, asked, " How do you like my line of 
battle .'' " — "I think it should be made upon our left on the 
brink of that ravine," replied Col. Lee. To this suggestion 
Baker made no reply. A narrow and deep ravine, running 
diagonally from the direction of the cart-path towards the 
river, seemed not only to offer an impassable obstacle to the 
enemy, but somewhat served as a cover in case it became 
necessary to retire upon Edward's Ferry, where Stone was 
then operating. As Baker formed his line of battle, the 
enemy could have come in between the brink of the ravine 
and our left wing. Since morning the enemy had been draw- 



44 

ing nearer and nearer, feeling Baker's position and ascertain- 
ing his numbers. The skirmish with Devens, and a few shells 
fired from the Heights on the Maryland shore which reached 
their columns, did not retard his advance. It was now be- 
tween half-past one and two p. m. This was the hour when 
the enemy came in on the front and right, — the Eighth 
Virginia Regiment immediately in the front, a battalion of the 
Thirteenth Mississippi, and Cudworth's Cavalry dismounted 
on the right. The cavalry numbered about three hundred. 
The Eighth Virginia came to the edge of the woods bordering 
the open space within which was formed the centre of Baker's 
line of battle, and halting, formed in line, about two hundred 
and fifty feet from the line. The Virginians certainly, as well 
as the men of the Fifteenth Massachusetts Regiment, and 
perhaps others, were armed with smooth-bore muskets. 

And so the battle commenced. It will be perceived that 
our line was in the form of a curtain, running towards the 
ravine, but not reaching it on the left, and terminating on the 
right in an angle, the face of which was formed by the Fif- 
teenth Massachusetts, under command of Devens and Kimball. 
The six-pounder gun opened fire at once upon the Eighth Vir- 
ginia, so did the supporting force of infantry ; while at the same 
time Major Kimball opened fire on the Mississippians and the 
dismounted cavalry. The gun in the centre was loaded and 
fired with energy, but being provided with neither grape nor 
canister it was almost useless. At an expenditure of mo- 
ments most precious, boats had been used to bring to the field 
a field-piece and six horses, with a limber filled with James' 
percussion shells. Not an ounce of grape could be found, 
though Col. Lee searched for it, as he was with his own hands 
conveying these shells to the gun. It was not fifteen minutes 
from the time the enemy made their appearance before every 
man at the field-piece, save one sergeant, was shot down. So 
withering was the fire that the two companies of Californians 
supporting the right of the centre laid down flat upon the 



45 

ground. Entreaties, violence, and sword-cuts by Col. Baker 
and his officers could not prevail upon them ; and so early 
in the action they went to the rear without participating in 
the fight. When they retreated, two companies of the re- 
serve were ordered up to take their places and support the 
gun. They came, and in a few moments officers' and men 
were nearly destroyed ; they were of the Twentieth Mas- 
sachusetts. While this contest was going on in the centre. 
Major Kimball, on the right, had been obliged to fall back. 
On the left, Lt.-Col. Wistar had been wounded, and the fight 
was progressing languidly on our side, being continued by 
detached companies. Our ammunition was giving out ; some 
men of the Twentieth were supplying themselves from the 
cartridge-boxes of the slain. The enemy now showed himself 
in strong numbers on our left. The Seventeenth and Eigh- 
teenth Mississippi and a battalion of the Thirteenth Mississippi 
came into line of battle parallel to the south brink of the ravine 
and near its edge ; and here they opened a destructive fire on 
our left. At the same time the Eighth Virginia advanced out 
of the wood, in line of battle, upon Baker's centre, and the 
Mississippians and Cudworth's dismounted cavalry were- press- 
ing up on his right. The Union troops were in a square, the 
front, right and left sides of which were held by the enemy, 
while directly in their rear was the steep bluff, falling to a 
swollen and unfordable river. It was now that Col. Lee said 
to Col. Baker, " Sir, the day is going hard with us," to which 
Col. Baker replied, " The battle is lost, sir." Then, as if 
unwilling to survive it, this brave man moved forward to the 
front, down the cart-path, or nearly on its line, and there, in 
the front of the left of his line, he fell riddled with bullets. 
So near was he to the Eighth Virginia Regiment that Col, Lee 
saw a tall officer step out to within ten paces and deliver with 
his pistol his fire at Col. Baker's head ; at the same time, from 
a squad, a volley of musketry was fired at him, when he fell to 



46 

rise no more. As some of the Californians carried his body- 
to the rear, Col. Lee saw on the side of his head where the 
pistol-shot of the officer had taken effect. He was carried 
across the river into Maryland, as narrated, and we had 
passed the house which held his dead body. After the death 
of Col. Baker, Col. Lee conferred with Col. Devens and Major 
Revere and one or two other officers. What was to be done .-* 
There seemed to be no answer ; so Col. Lee, as commanding 
officer, took upon himself the responsibility, and gave orders 
to fall back upon the river shore, under the blufif. But at this 
moment Capt. Hardy, the Assistant Adjutant-General of Col. 
Baker, appeared with Col. Cogswell. Col. Cogswell, com- 
manding a Tammany regiment of Baker's Brigade, had man- 
aged to cross during the fight, and now, claiming to be the 
ranking officer among the survivors, directed an attempt to be 
made to open communication with Edward's Ferry. Col. Lee 
instantly acceded, saying it was no time to discuss rank, that 
he would obey Col. Cogswell's orders ; and orders were then 
given to move by the left flank. About two hundred men, 
being portions of the Fifteenth and Twentieth Massachusetts 
regiments and of the Forty-Second New York, obeyed the 
order ; but when they arrived at the brink of the ravine they 
received a volley at short range from one of the Mississippi 
regiments in line on the opposite brink, and they fell back to 
the place from whence they started. And now the Eighth 
Virginia Regiment slowly advanced. The few Union troops 
that had preserved their formation were formed in line of battle 
to oppose them. Col. Lcc, with ten or twelve officers and be- 
tween twenty and thirty men, fell back to the river-side, down 
the bluff. The enemy instantly rushed forward to the edge of 
the bluft^, where, without any obstacle, their fire commanded the 
passage of the river. The bank was lined with the dead and 
wounded. Boats filled with wounded were still passing from 
the Virginia shore to Harrison's Island ; and these boats were 



47 

a scow, the life-boat, and the little ducking boat. The whole 
of these boats were capable of carrying at one time from 
forty-six to fifty men. 

Hardly had this scene of horrors opened to the enemy when, 
with yells of exultation, they piled horror on horror. They 
fired volley upon volley into the struggling wretches who had 
leaped into the chilling waters of the Potomac ; they riddled 
the scow, filled as she was with dead and dying, — they rid- 
dled it with bullets, and it sank with its dying and its dead, 
sank in the middle of the stream. Crossing the river from the 
Island, empty and sculled by a single oarsman, the metallic life- 
boat met their gaze ; the oarsman was instantly shot, and the 
boat drifted idly down the stream ; there was nothing left but 
the little ducking boat, and that was now useless. There was 
nothing left but to swim, surrender, or die. " With a devo- 
tion worthy the cause they were serving," says Gen. Stone in 
his official report, " officers and men, while quarter was being 
offered to such as would lay down their arms, stripped them- 
selves of their swords and muskets, and hurled them out into 
the river to prevent their falling into the hands of the foe, and 
saved themselves as they could by swimming, floating on logs, 
and concealing themselves in the bushes of the forest, to make 
their way up and down the river bank to a place of crossing." 
Col. Devens escaped by swimming. Col. Lee, in attempting 
to make his way up the river, was, with Major Revere and 
some of his other officers, captured in the woods in the middle 
of the night by the enemy's cavalry ; taken to Leesburg, he 
there found himself in the presence of the rebel commander 
who had whipped him, — a Gen. N. G. Evans, of South Caro- 
lina, a graduate of West Point, familiarly known as Shanks 
Evans from the peculiar formation of his legs, which were very 
knock-kneed. Col. Lee says it was hard to tell which of the 
two, Cogswell or Evans, both having been old friends in the 
old army, was the more overcome at the meeting. Evans had 
invited his unwilling guest to join him in a convivial draught 



48 

of peach brandy, and Cogswell was saying to his conqueror, 
" I tell ye, Shanks, shan't take my parole on any such terms ; 
I'll see you d — d first, Shanks." Gen. Evans had offered 
to release Col. Cogswell if he would sign a parole not to fight 
again during the war, and this the Colonel was refusing to do. 
Owing to the peach brandy, the refusal was given in strong- 
terms. Col. Lee also, but more politely, rejected Gen. Evans's 
proflfer. So our prisoners went to Richmond, to be afterwards 
exchanged. If Col. Lee could have found anything to float 
on, or if the raft which he and his officers tried to buckle to- 
gether with their belts would have floated, they might have 
crossed without trouble. The loss in killed in this fight has 
never been accurately ascertained ; a large number were shot 
in the river while trying to swim. The report of the rebel 
commander gives as their number engaged 3,500 men, being 
four regiments of infantry and a battalion of cavalry. Col. 
Lee's memorandum of the forces engaged on our side, taken 
as they came up and reported on the bluff for duty, was 1,603 
men. Five hundred and twenty, including the wounded, 
were captured. The battle lasted from two p. m. until ten 
minutes before six, at which time Col. Lee ordered his com- 
mand to retire down the bank. 

It ('oes not seem necessary to spend much time in conclu- 
sions. The means of transportation from the Maryland shore 
to the Island, and from thence to the Virginia shore, I have 
given. With such means not over three hundred an hour 
could have been added to our force under the most favorable 
circumstances : how much less with the returning wounded 
and the depression of probable defeat ! Gen. Stone says in 
his comments, "The forwarding of artillery before its support- 
ing force of infantry also impeded the rapid assembling of an 
imposing force on the Virginia shore. If the infantry forces 
had first crossed, a difference of one thousand men would have 
been made in the infantry line at the time of attack, probably 
enough to have given us the victory. If any officers or men 



49 

were charged with the duty of ensiiruig the regular passage of 
troops, it was not performed ; for the reinforcements, as they 
arrived, found no one in command of the boats, and great de- 
lays were occasioned." 

Col. Baker expiated his fault with his life. He was a brave 
and energetic man. As a Senator in the United States Senate 
from Oregon, he had deemed it necessary to make public 
speeches upon the conduct of the war ; from the Pacific to 
the Atlantic he had condemned the slowness of McClellan's 
movements, and criticised what he interpreted to be his dis- 
inclination to fight. Full of courage and of vanity, he lost 
sight of the elements which make success possible in such 
undertakings as he lent himself to achieve. But just from a 
confidential interview with President Lincoln, where he had 
expressed himself as in entire sympathy with the President's 
feelings at the manner in which McClellan was delaying, and 
held out hopes that should an opportunity offer he would 
startle the country with what a fighting commander could ac- 
complish, he saw opening before him his opportunity. The 
large powers intrusted to him by Gen. Stone, he never 
thought of using other than for a fight, and when, too late, 
he saw his error, he expiated it with his life. Would that 
some others had done likewise, and that the enemy had cap- 
tured their commissions as major-general as the enemy cap- 
tured Baker's, when they found his cape overcoat hanging on a 
tree, at the time his body was lying stark and stiff in Maryland. 

The demonstration from Edward's Ferry by Gen. Stone was 
not so serious as to call for the use of much, if any, of Gen. 
Evans's force to observe it. Gen. Stone could not aid Col. 
Baker, so he says, by marching along the Virginia shore, be- 
cause " there was a rebel battery in the woods between the 
two ferries, which had prevented a reconnoissance in that 
direction." 

At four p. M. a telegram from Gen. Stone to Gen. Banks, 
for a brigade to occupy the Maryland shore opposite Harri- 
7 



50 

son's Island, had caused our movement, as I have narrated. 
Our brigade was to replace those troops at Conrad's Ferry 
which Gen. Stone then supposed to be pressing on victorious 
after the flying rebels. Hence the letter to me that Gen. 
Stone was in Leesburg, with very little fighting. At five 
o'clock, p. M., news of Col. Baker's death was conveyed to 
Gen. Stone ; the news of the disaster soon followed. In- 
structions delivered on the road from Gen. Stone met Gen. 
Hamilton : -these were, to repair to Conrad's Ferry, and there 
dispose of his force so as to protect Harrison's Island. 

The rain poured piteously upon us all day of the 22d, as all 
day fugitives and wounded came into our lines. Parts of 
three regiments were utterly demoralized and routed, and yet 
there was a plucky feeling among some. A bright youth of 
the Fifteenth Massachusetts Regiment, from Worcester, looked 
longingly at a miserable fire, trying to burn in my favor 
despite the rain ; a soldier's overcoat covered him, — his re- 
maining garments were in Virginia. 

" Where did you come from, my man .-' " I asked. 

" Virginny," he replied. 

Somehow or other he took a long pull at my whiskey flask. 
How his eyes twinkled as he returned it with thanks ! 

Yes, he did have a hard time. Col. Devens told him to 
take care of himself; he (the colonel) was going to swim. 

" When are you ready to go back again .-' " 

" Just as soon as I can get another suit of clothes," he said, 
with unmistakable emotion. 

The movement was over. For two or three days we ex- 
tended our guards along the Potomac, and once we marched 
to Edward's Ferry and crossed the river into Virginia, only to 
turn round, recross, and march back again. We suffered now 
from over caution, — a penalty for the want of it. 

Our troops were again all on the Maryland side of the Poto- 
mac. Gen. McClellan had visited us and departed. 

On the 26th of October, at nine o'clock, a. m., our regiment 



51 



turned its face again towards Darnstown, and on the 27th, 
after two days of marching, away back in some Maryland 
farmer's field, skirted by wood on the north and east, out of 
sight of the highway and in sight of the Potomac, we made 
our encampment ; we were about four miles from our old 
camp. Here the days were a constant repetition of drum- 
beat and drill, orders from headquarters, picket duty, cold 
weather, rain, hurricane, smoky tents, old newspapers, military 
tribulations, vague hopes, and more vague instruction by a 
topographical engineer officer, on Gen. Banks' staff, in some 
details of field engineering. Here the Sibley tents proved 
themselves worthy of their reputation ; for they held in warmth 
and in comfort some sixteen or seventeen soldiers in each, 
around a fire beneath the iron tripod that supported the single 
pole, while the smoke curled out of a hole at the top Here, 
too, we received two thousand pairs of stockings from Mrs. 
Harrison Gray Otis, one thousand pairs collected in ten days, 
votive offerings for our regiment. Some of them were from 
the young ladies at Prof. Agassiz's school, at Cambridge, and 
these were like the world when it was without form and void ; 
some were from Campton Village, in New Hampshire, with 
names of knitters stitched on them, and they were of colors red, 
white, and blue, and there were prizes in them,— pin-cushions, 
needle-cases. Life of Havelock, the real Christian soldier, moral 
tracts, and much that tended to make the knapsack heavier on 
many a weary march. Poor fellows! how many were to 
struo-gle onward under that weary load, but at last to expose 
to some stranger's eye the little Bible or the dear letter or 
the loving token from a home the soldier never more shall 
gaze upon. Friend or foe, whoever he may be, the heart will 
ache for such in sympathy. Said an Indiana colonel to me at 
this camp, " Some of my boys shot some of the enemy's 
pickets ; they got their knapsacks, and found them filled with 
letters from home and nice things beautifully made by the 
Southern women." 



52 

Hardly had we arrived at this camp when Capt. Gary made 
application to me for permission to cross the river and get 
reliable intelligence of the missing in the recent massacre at 
Ball's Bluff. I gave my assent, moved by the feeling that it 
might bring relief to fathers and mothers, to wives and chil- 
dren, to know that some of the absent of the fight were held as 
prisoners, and not dead beneath the waters of the Potomac. 
In addition to my assent, I wrote a letter to Gen N. G. Evans, 
the rebel commander. It was well known at the time that 
Capt. Gary's effort terminated without result. The captain 
crossed, but found no one within two miles of the river on the 
Virginia side. With a white handkerchief on the end of a 
stick, in token of his peaceful designs, Capt. Gary at last en- 
countered a non-belligerent Irishman, who informed him that 
if he should come across any of the enemy's guerillas, that 
white rag would n't do him any good. " And that," said the 
captain, when he reported to me, " was about the conclusion I 
had come to ; so I concluded to return." 

Every day now made it more and more apparent that winter 
was upon us. Huge fires of logs in front of our tents ceased 
to convey any warmth inside ; we had no stoves ; holes a foot 
deep and three feet long, with a flat stone on top, served as 
fire-places ; the wood entered at one end, the smoke escaped 
by the aid of three flour-barrels as a chimney outside the tent 
at the other. But what were tents in such days and nights of 
rain and wind on that Muddy Branch ? Our tents were often 
prostrated, our encampment a mass of shapeless canvas. On 
the 2d of November we were treated to a hurricane, with rain. 
A huge oak branch, torn off by the storm, fell athwart my tent, 
snapping the ridge-pole like a pipe-stem ; luckily, I had just 
stepped out to attend reveille. More than one half of the 
ofiiccrs' tents were down ; the parade-ground became a min- 
iature ocean ; the rain pelted the canvas ; the tent-cords 
strained and tugged at their fastenings ; while, like discharges 
of small arms, the canvas cracked, and the wind roared in vol- 



53 

leys through the tree-tops. The sentinels crouched under the 
storm, with their rifles under their arms, and their shoulders 
covered with overcoats and india-rubber blankets. It was a 
hard time for the healthy ; it was a sorry encampment for the 
sick. Lieut.-Col. Andrews prostrated with typhoid fever in an 
adjoining house, and our hospital tents filled with men suffer- 
ing from the measles, now an epidemic, contributed to the 
dismal miseries of Muddy Branch. It was about this time, 
too, that the fleet sailed for South Carolina, to make a first 
attempt at landing. Every blast of the tempest threatened 
its destruction. 

On the 8th of November, during a brief absence of fifteen 
days, the command of our regim.ent devolved upon Wilder 
Dvvight. In characteristic letters he informed me of the con- 
dition of the regiment, and that he had moved it to higher 
ground, near Seneca Creek. But the weather would not 
change with the encampment. " It is a raw and gusty night," 
he writes ; "the troubled Potomac is undoubtedly chafing with 
his shores, and although this first taste of winter agrees with 
our men, it is not favorable to admirable precision in drill ; " 
news of the fleet landing at Beaufort, S. C, " makes him jolly ; " 
Gen. Banks tells him that he " feels the whole division will be 
moved soon," and Copeland has returned from Washington 
with gossip " that we are to form part of an expedition." 
" Can't you get us ordered South } " he then asks. " Wish you 
could see McClellan, and get us out of this latitude and at- 
mosphere into one of warmer activity ; it is cold up here," 
he adds. Then he speaks of Thanksgiving, — "Gov. An- 
drew would like to have it observed, and he has sent on his 
proclamation, psalms and all." Then there are other items. 
" Col. Andrews is still sick ; his wife came on Sunday ; the 
measles are diminishing ; " he has a " comfortable shelter for 
my horse ; gets on with drills respectably, though he can un- 
derstand an occasional gentle hint to . Col. Webster 

commands the brigade ; the new officers have not come," and 



54 

he is preparing to "celebrate Thanksgiving"; also, that 
" Lieut. J. M. Ellis has resigned, having received an appoint- 
ment as captain in the commissary department of the volun- 
teer service." 

On the 28th of November I returned again to camp, bring- 
ing with me as visitors from Boston Messrs. Thomas Motley, 
W. R. Robeson, and E. F. Bowditch. Our camp, though 
higher and dryer, was a cheerless spot. Though there were 
only ten or a dozen cases of measles in the hospital, two or 
three new ones presented themselves every day, while by day 
or night sounds of distressing colds and coughs were audible. 
No watchfulness could ward off sickness, or remove that con- 
dition which offered such temptations to disease when the 
right kind presented itself. My hospital tents were crowded, 
and thirty men sick in their tents. The commissioned offi- 
cers did not escape, — Capts. Savage and Mudge, and Lieut. 
Wheaton were seriously ill in houses. We had fires in tents, 
in stoves received about the first of December. I did all I 
could to make the men comfortable. It was the 13th day of 
December before we received information that this wretched 
spot was to know us no more, that we were going to remove 
to the much healthier locality of Frederick. So our sick were 
sent to Washington by the canal. 

How over one hundred and fifty or two hundred poor fellows, 
typhoid and bilious fever patients, and patients with fractures 
and ills grievous to be borne, after waiting from 9 a, m. till 4 
p. M., were huddled into the damp hold of a common canal 
boat, for the hospitals at Washington, — a hold in which there 
was not as much provision as the most indifferent teamster 
provides for his horse, even straw to lie down upon, until I 
ordered some to be procured ; and how all the unfortunates 
could not be taken at that single trip, but were hauled home 
to be hauled back again next day, save some too sick who 
were transferred to an adjoining store, where at night one man 
died ; how when these poor men reached Washington they 



55 

laid two clays in the boat before being removed to the hospital, 
and during this time had only water crackers to eat ; and how 
the whole story was told in the " Boston Post," to persuade 
others to enlist, is a part of our history I do not like to recall. 
And as well for this, among many other reasons, because it 
brings before me again that poor boy Kittredge, of Lowell, a 
recruit, and therefore a fit subject for that scourge among new 
soldiers, typhoid fever, with which I found him greatly emaci- 
ated in our canvas hospital. Too sick to move with the others, 
I ordered our surgeon to remove him to Darnstown and place 
him in the church, used as a hospital. After we left, by an 
order, this poor boy was removed five or six miles to the canal, 
thence by boat to Point of Rocks, thence by rail to Frederick, 
where he arrived to die, soon after his arrival. It is said his 
feet were frozen upon the passage. 

On Tuesday morning, the 3d day of December, we turned 
our backs willingly upon the dismal camp at Seneca Creek 
and Muddy Branch, and making that day seventeen and one 
half miles, encamped at night at the small town of Barnsville, 
en ronte to Frederick. 

A patch of woods in the outskirts of Barnsville was our 
halting place for the night. When the men were comfortable 
before their huge fires, and tents and camp-kettles ; when the 
horses were fed and sheltered as well as I could contrive, then 
with the chaplain, major, and quartermaster I started for the 
aristocratic town of Barnsville ; for there was a supper await- 
ing us, ordered by my cook in anticipation of our arrival; a 
nice supper he said it was. We were positively saturated 
with hunger. Conceive then of our feelings on finding soldiers 
filling the house and our supper filling the soldiers. You may 
rest assuied there were no men of the Second among them ; 
they were all from other regiments of the brigade. Head- 
quarters of the Second took possession of a bedroom, ordered 
a second supper, which never appeared. With fifty or more 
famished officers at the headquarters of the brigade, late at 



56 

night, hunger was satisfied with twenty-five cents' worth of 
food ; it was all the lady of the mansion would accept, and all 
she ought to demand. It was fifteen minutes after four in the 
morning when reveille sounded. It was dark ; the camp- 
fires roared among the trees, and the stars twinkled in the 
sky, as the soldiers, hurrying to and fro in the ruddy glare, 
prepared their breakfasts. At five o'clock the drum sounded, 
" Strike your tents!" and tents fell simultaneously. Wagons 
packed, horses hitched up, the first streak of dawn saw our 
regiment moving out of the wood, along the road to Frederick. 
The thermometer was far below the freezing point, but the 
roads were in good order, the men inspirited. We were to 
lead the brigade, provided no other regiment caught us ; there- 
fore I ordered the regiment to do its best. We made sixteen 
miles in four and one half hours, nine of them without a halt. 
I know how much this march tired a foot man, for I walked 
the whole of it. My orderly led my horse. We did lead the 
brigade to Frederick, and there, in its outskirts, we passed the 
night ; and next day, the 5th of December, notwithstanding 
the assurances of Gen. Banks to me that it was not the in- 
tention to put our army into winter quarters, only to place 
them where they could be moved easily by rail, we went into 
winter quarters, and remained until the 27th day of February, 
in the year 1862. 

On the turnpike, towards Baltimore, about three miles from 
Frederick City, in Maryland, turn to the left and follow for a 
few rods a small stream, and it will lead to a fine growth of 
timber, which, gently falling away towards the south, opens 
upon a grassy field. In these woods and upon this slope was 
located the camp of our regiment. The underbrush was 
cleared away, and trees that interfered with the regularity of our 
camp cut down. The wood became a delightful grove, where 
the sun shone all day, to the great improvement of health. 

Frederick City, with its nine thousand inhabitants sheltered 
in real houses, with its civilizing influences, the result of some 



57 

centuries of experience, found itself surrounded by some seven- 
teen thousand men cradled elsewhere, — men getting along 
with nature in the rough, canvas for houses, straw and a blanket 
for a bed, the grove for a church and the drum for church- 
bells : with these and a few other artificial appliances, we 
invited the citizens of Frederick to see how comfortable we 
could become when we fell back upon first principles. But we 
were not going into winter quarters, we were told ; this was to 
deceive those who, shouting onward ! remained behind ; there- 
fore we went into winter quarters by jerks. Boards for tent 
floors came first ; then we ventured on sides, built up about 
three feet high, in which there was a slide door ; upper sides 
and roofs of canvas, that is, we pitched our tents on top. At 
length, it was on the 17th of December, an order came to esti- 
mate for lumber for huts : we were to remain till spring. 
Cantonment Hicks, as Gen. Abercrombie baptized the en- 
campment of his brigade, in honor of Governor Hicks of 
Maryland, became our winter quarters. 

By the last of December it became apparent that we were in 
winter quarters in truth. Sometimes the grounds were white 
with snow, and the parade ground obliterated ; then the senti- 
nels ploughed along in their endless tramp ; then the trees 
stretched their long branches weirdly against a leaden sky, 
while the men flitted idly from tent to tent, enjoying the cheer 
and the release from drill. That was a camp of comfort : per- 
haps there never was another like it ; the smoke curled out 
of the top of a hundred Sibley tents, indicating the genial fire 
within, and furnishing food for reflection in following winters, 
when four pieces of thin cotton, each about the dimensions of a 
good-sized pocket-handkerchief, furnished shelter for four men. 
And there was the goodly cottage in which dwelt the colonel of 
the regiment. Verily, the men builded better than I intended.' 
The huge chestnut logs that formed the walls were each 
drawn from the forest by four horses ; from these walls sprung 
oaken rafters, upon which was thrown a covering of tarred 
8 



58 

paper, battened down, for a roof; and then the fire-place 
within, — a huge opening of brick, where great logs of dry oak 
crackled, and the flames leaped with laughter up my wide- 
mouthed chimney, and the fiery sparks danced along the 
snowy roof, leaving no footprints of their merry sport. 

But we were not altogether idle in that camp at Frederick, 
As the old year died, and the new moments of the new year 
were being told off on the dial, the people at home were 
aroused with astonishment at the latest news, viz. the sus- 
pension by the Boston and New York banks of specie pay- 
ments, while we, utterly regardless of money and its mysteries, 
were perfecting ourselves in the duties of a soldier. For this 
there were all sorts of regulations and requirements : it re- 
quired a mental effort to know how to get out of camp, and 
where, and when ; attempts to enter and supply intoxicating 
drinks to the troops were guarded against, while for all proper 
persons restraints were as light as possible. And then there 
was that daily duty report, recording the attendance of all com- 
pany officers at the times and places when and where the men 
were required to do any duty, from a roll-call to a drill, from a 
company cook's field of operations to the cleanliness of a 
company street. 

The reputation for obedience and discipline which our regi- 
ment seemed likely to achieve at Brook Farm, in Massachu- 
setts, was fairly accorded to it in its camp at Frederick. Such 
results flowed from the recognition of the simple truth that in 
a soldier's life every hour of the twenty-four has its appropriate 
duty, and every duty has but one proper mode of performance. 
To know what that duty was and to see it thoroughly performed 
was the aim of every commissioned and non-commissioned 
officer of our regiment, from the colonel down. It was only 
necessary for the colonel to set the example to observe an 
enthusiastic and intelligent following. Other regiments of our 
division, noticing results, attributed them to an unfeeling dis- 
cipline. The patriarchal relation subsisting between officers 



59 

and their men in other regiments, in which the colonel was 
" Old Dad," or " Grandpa," or " Boss," or even " Old Hoss," 
and the men were " Boys," was unknown to us. Those who 
recognized the especial camaraderie of the volunteers branded 
us as " Regulars," — " Gordon's Regulars," — and this reputation 
was known throughout the Army of the Potomac. I heard of 
it in Washington from staff officers of Gen. McClellan ; in- 
deed, it was said, as a compliment, we were to be ordered to 
Washington to guard the city. I trust we were sufficiently 
thankful for such an escape. 

" Is that your colonel .-' " said a citizen to our chaplain. (I 
had called at the latter's tent for a moment.) 

" It is." 

The man looked hard at the chaplain, evidently considering 
whether a chaplain would romance in that way. 

" Certainly it is," repeated the chaplain ; adding, " You look 
incredulous." 

" So I am," said the citizen. " I thought Col. Gordon was 
fifty years old, and as savage as thunder." 

Many of you remember the enterprising foreign artist who 
sold us letter-paper with a pictorial design at the head of each 
sheet, described underneath as " Camp of the Second Regi- 
ment Massachusetts Infantry, at Frederick, Md., Col. George 
H. Gordon Commanding," in which was represented a senti- 
nel on his post at an order arms. There was not a soldier in 
the brigade that believed that sketch was taken from real life. 

I should like to tell of our neighbors, an Indiana regiment 
of our brigade, who upon an order to march at daylight, after- 
wards countermanded, yelled vociferously all night and slept 
all next day ; I should like to dwell upon the hospitals, and 
the drills, and the recitations ; but I must not. 

There was not much time for play or idleness or disaffec- 
tion. The men were well fed, thanks to a liberal government ; 
were more than carefully clad, thanks to the Ladies' Asso- 
ciation at home ; were well sheltered ; were well nursed 



60 

when sick ; were well drilled and disciplined ; were, in short, 
well cared for wlien they obeyed, and well punished when 
they erred ; and so the machine, well regulated, moved under 
an intelligent will. Notwithstanding the duties of the day, 
there were times and opportunities for social pleasures at 
Frederick. That period of intense life found expression in 
intense feeling, and those people of Frederick who were loyal 
were so heartily loyal that we never can forget them. The 
hour of trial for Frederick had not yet come ; but when it did, 
none of those who invited the Union troops to their houses, 
who adorned their walls with our regimental flags at their par- 
ties, and attended the concerts which our band gave, — none 
of them ever wavered in their loyalty, God bless Frederick 
for its true-hearted women ! who braved all and suffered all 
from their devotion to their country. 

It was here, at our camp at Frederick, that Gov, Andrew 
first made known his intention to take the nomination of 
officers to fill vacancies in our regiment out of my hands. To 
refer briefly to this matter in giving our history is a necessity : 
At Maryland Heights, Darnstown, Seneca, and at Frederick, 
there had been resignations of our officers, — some to enter, 
with higher rank, the new cavalry regiment forming in Mas- 
sachusetts, some promoted to staff corps, and some, two or 
three only, because it was not deemed desirable to retain 
them. In the record of the Second Massachusetts Infantry 
Mr. Quint has given the names and rank of those who left us, 
and the causes which moved them. In filling vacancies in the 
grade of second lieutenant, it had not occurred to me that the 
Governor would desire to depart from the plan adopted in the 
creation of the regiment, — that is, to commission such per- 
sons as I might nominate. The appointment, on the i8th of 
October, of Dr Leland as surgeon, vice Dr. Sargent, resigned 
through sickness, though without my knowledge or recom- 
mendation, inasmuch as it was a medical appointment, I did 
not consider as laying down a new rule ; nor did the circu- 



61 

lar letter, dated Nov. i, 1861, addressed by Gov. Andrew to 
the colonels of Massachusetts regiments, in which he ex- 
plained the principles by which he wished to be guided in 
making appointments to vacancies among the commissioned 
ofificers of the Massachusetts volunteer regiments (which duty 
was imposed upon him by Act of Congress), clearly enunciate 
a new line of departure. The circular expressed a desire that 
promotions to fill vacancies should be according to the princi- 
ple of seniority in rank ; while, as for original appointments, 
it was desired, as a general ride, that appointments should be 
made by " promotions in the regiment in which the vacancy 
exists." Guided by these rules, the Governor wished col- 
onels of Massachusetts regiments to prepare their recommen- 
dations, to be approved by the Commanding General of the 
brigade, and forwarded to him. I could not conceive these 
general instructions as departing, in our case, from the original 
plan, for the reasons given, and therefore looked with appre- 
hension upon being informed by the Governor, on the I3lh of 
December, that he had substituted, for the two young gentle- 
men whom I had recommended for vacancies among my 
second lieutenants, two others, then to me unknown. With a 
certain sense of the fitness of things the War Department had 
ordered colonels of regiments to test, by military examination, 
the qualifications of those who were appointed by Governors 
of States to regiments in the field. 

With this power a colonel was master of the situation. In 
my letter to the Governor, of the 13th of December, I alluded 
to the actual necessity of commissioning efficient men, insisted 
that there was no time now to establish a school of instruction, 
and again presented the names of P. R. Mason and H. B. 
Scott, to which I added John A. Fox, to fill the vacancy occa- 
sioned by the promotion of T. R. Robeson. My gentle hint 
that those two young gentlemen whom the Governor proposed 
to send me in the places of my nominees might be severely 
tested by an examination, brought the reply from the Governor 



62 

" that he had too much confidence in my honor and integrity 
to suppose that I would subject officers appointed by him to an 
examination that I would not subject them to if recommended 
by myself." In my rejoinder, after reminding the Governor of 
his promise and action in his original appointments, I claimed 
that the question of the fitness of any one to receive an ap- 
pointment in my regiment must ultimately be determined by 
myself; suggested that possibly a civilian could not judge as 
well as a soldier of those merits or demerits which make or 
mar professional fame ; doubted much if an experience in the 
militia would aid discernment ; referred to the fact that the 
War Department had given Mr. Mason a commission since his 
Excellency's refusal to heed my application for this gentleman ; 
and denied that the opinion of another colonel of a Massachu- 
setts regiment, that Mr. Mason was not qualified to receive a 
commission in his regiment, should control my wishes to have 
that gentleman in mine.* I further pointed out to the Gov- 
ernor that he had commissioned citizens whom I had nomi- 
nated in the places of Captains Curtis, Whitny, and Lieut. 
Higginson. Astonished therefore at the enunciation of a new 
policy now, I added, " It is your Excellency's duty to commis- 
sion officers for my regiment ; it is mine to test them. Each 
act is independent of the will of the other ; both may be in 
harmony." " It is anomalous," I urged, " that the General 
Government should have placed a commissioning power in the 
hands of Governors of States, which act begins and ends their 
responsibility for the appointee, as also thelatter's responsibility 
to them ; each meeting but for a moment, part in official 
relations forever — a new relation subsisting, the responsibili- 
ties of which are borne by those who are alone subject to, can 
receive orders from, and are in every way amenable to another 
head, that of the War Department. Such have been the 
wise provisions of law since the organization of this vast army. 

* This had Ikcii urged by tlie Governor against my nomination of Mr. Mason. 



63 

I cannot waive this duty imposed upon me, either as to time 
or mode of performance." 

Then suggesting that there could be but a single motive in 
the selection of candidates, in either the Governor or myself, 
and that motive " fitness," I asked his Excellency to submit 
to me such names as he might desire to appoint in my regi- 
ment, and if I was sure they possessed the fitness which "it is 
made by higher authority than either of us could control my 
duty to determine," I should certainly not object to his Ex- 
cellency's appointments. My letter ended as follows : " Allow 
me to call your Excellency's attention to the fact that there 
are six vacancies unfilled in my regiment. In some manner 
they must be filled ; their services are indispensable ; I am 
satisfied with the candidates I have proposed. There have 
been cases in which the United States Government has recog- 
nized and paid for the performance of official duty by gentle- 
men acting as officers without commissions from the Govern- 
ors of States This has been done among Pennsylvania Reg- 
iments, is being now done in Massachusetts in the organiza- 
tion of a force for operation on the Southern Coast. I trust I 
shall not be compelled, for the good of the service, to fill my 
vacancies in a similar manner." 

This ended the controversy, and for us most happily. Since 
leaving Massachusetts there had been eight resignations of 
officers in our regiment,- resignations, almost without excep- 
tion, to take a higher rank elsewhere. We had lost Curtis 
andHigginson and others, as appears in detail in the record 
of the Second, and we had received as second lieutenants, to 
fill vacancies, Shelton and Fox and Crowninshield, Oakey 
and Scott. I repeat, the controversey closed for us most 
happily ; for it gave the regiment, as one of Gov. Andrew's 
appointees whom I did not nominate, Daniel Oakey ; and it 
gave us, as commissioned officers whom I did nominate, the 
young gentlemen whose names I have mentioned. 

Wkh the commissioning by the Governor of a number of 



64 

sergeants whom I recommended for promotion as second lieu- 
tenants, the action of the Governor in this matter was entirely 
acceptable to me so long as I remained Colonel of the Second 
Massachusetts Regiment ; indeed, save that Mr. Stephen M. 
Weld, of West Roxbury, on the 26th of December, 1861, made 
application to me, to nominate for a commission in my regi- 
ment his son, Stephen M. Weld, Jr., adding that, before ap- 
plying to the Governor of Massachusetts for a commission, he 
would like to know that such appointment would be agreeable 
to me (of which I gave him, by the way, the fullest assurance), 
this correspondence with the Governor closed the subject. I 
may mention here that Mr. Weld subsequently concluded to 
accept an appointment on the staff of Gen. Fitz John Porter. 

There was, however, an interference in a new quarter, and 
formidable in its opposition to discipline : it was a peremptory 
order from Gen. Banks to release a private soldier of the regi- 
ment from confinement in the guard-house at our Frederick 
camp, and restore him to duty. I think I had a right to 
assume that one of Gen Banks' old constituents in Massachu- 
setts, a friend, perhaps father, of the soldier in the guard-house, 
had made a personal appeal for this release, and so it was 
ordered ; but not so obeyed. My remonstrance, in a letter to 
the Major-General Commanding, sets forth my feelings ; policy 
should not overthrow principle if it could be avoided. Ac- 
knowledging the order, I added, under date of Dec. 26, 1861, 
" The soldier is in my guard-tent, charged with violation of the 
46th article of war ; no evidence having been submitted to a 
court-martial, guilt or innocence cannot be affirmed. I have 
examined the case, and am satisfied that it is proper to submit 
it to a court. Not intending to violate any lawful order of a 
commander, and convinced that the enormity of the military 
oft'ence committed cannot have been fully laid before you, I 
have ventured to withhold the execution of your order releas- 
ing this soldier from confinement until a further communica- 
tion. I have in my guard-tent, in irons, another soldier of my 



65 

regiment, charged with sleeping on his post while a sentinel. 
It is charged that he was found a few paces frcm his post, 
asleep and lying down. It is alleged that the private whom 
you order me to release was found a few paces from his post, 
asleep and sitting down. Why should one be taken and the 
other left } Respectfully submitting that I cannot rely upon 
my sentinels if it happens that a few weeks' or even months' 
confinement for the commission of this very grave military 
offence, is followed by a release from arrest and a return 
to duty, and believing that in this case I have in no manner 
acted otherwise than is provided in army regulations, and by 
authority of rules and articles of war, I have the honor respect- 
fully to await further orders in relation to the releasing of this 
soldier from confinement and restoring him to duty with his 
company." 

I have no record of what became of the subject of this cor- 
respondence ; but I presume it did no more to mar our ami- 
cable relations than it had efficacy in impressing upon Gen. 
Banks the conviction that he was acting the rS/e of a General to 
command, for under date of the 31st of December I find a note 
from him, addressing me from headquarters, Frederick, Mary- 
land, as " My dear sir," and continuing, " If not any interference 
with arrangements for your regiment to-morrow, I should es- 
teem it a favor if you would allow your band to visit my head- 
quarters for a couple of hours, say from eleven to one o'clock ; 
for their trouble I will gladly satisfy them. 

" Yours very truly, 

" N. P. Banks, 

"J/. G. C. Divisionr 

On the 1 6th of February we were anxiously awaiting news 
from Fort Donaldson. Our line of attack against the Rebellion 
extended from west to east, almost on a parallel of latitude. 
Tennessee had been entered ;, olu" gunboats had penetrated its 
rivers even to the northei-n borders of Alabama; Bowling 

9 



66 

Green must be evacuated ; Columbus can give no aid to Fort 
Donaldson, for the latter is invested ; Burnside's expedition 
threatens lines of communication from Manassas. To aid 
these movements, which have wonderfully raised our spirits, 
our regiment contributed ils quota of fifteen men towards 
the complement from the Division, — a complement of men 
to aid in manning the gunboats on Western waters, there- 
fore sailors were wanted. The plan was to gather at Cairo, 
take Columbus in Tennessee, and then sweep on to New Or- 
leans. To aid in carrying out this magnificent undertaking, 
Capt. Cary of our regiment was detailed to take the de- 
tachment from Banks' Division, and joining a larger com- 
mand from the Army of the Potomac, proceed with them to 
Cairo, 111. 

I confess my hopes were somewhat dashed as I read Capt. 
Cary's first letter from Baltimore, written to me upon his 
arrival, in which, after writing that he started with sixty-six of 
the worst men of the Division, nearly all of them drunk, and 
with no guard but two men, one of whom he begged of the 
Provost Marshal, he found himself on the way to Baltimore 
with sixty men of Stone's Division as bad as his own, in charge 
of Lieut Raguet, of Gen. Gorman's staff. Having arrived too 
late to join the main body, which had started, the captain was 
obliged to put his men in a room, leaving his two reliable men 
with revolvers at the door of entrance ; but alas ! upon his 
return in the morning Capt. Cary found that thirty of his 
veterans had escaped through a rear door which they had 
broken open. Obliged to go on with what he had left, he had 
employed all the police force of Baltimore looking after the 
absentees. The captain closes with the following mournful 
revelation : " A policeman told me he had seen hard parties, 
but this was the worst he ever saw. And this from a Balti- 
more policeman ! You can judge," adds the captain, and con- 
tinues, " I have tried knocking down, cajoling, wheedling, 
everything ; but they are a set of the most unmitigated d — d 



67 

scoundrels I ever met. But I can say, when they all get off it 
will be well for the Division." 

Sharp on Capt. Gary's letter came the soul-stirring news 
that we had captured Fort Donaldson, with more than 15,030 
prisoners ; that a rebel Gen. Price, with his whole army, had 
been captured in Arkansas. I was so e.xcited that I ordered 
the regiment to cheer, the band to play, and I released the 
officers from recitation for the day. At this time came the 
news of Gen. Stone's arrest and confinement in Fort Lafayette. 
Why, was not known then, has never been known since ; but 
as he still lives, to him the people must look for his vindica- 
tion. 

No wonder we were impatient to join in the movements that 
seemed to be closing in around the doomed traitors, as we 
called them. " They can't recover from this," we cried. Im- 
patiently we waited. The 2 2d day of February, Abraham 
Lincoln, as Constitutional Commander of the Armies and 
Navies of the United States, appointed as the day for Gen. 
McClellan to move against the enemy. The President ordered 
it ; and now, exulting in our prospects, we celebrated the birth- 
day of Washington throughout the United States with joy, — 
we cheered for the victory that had followed victory ; the hope 
that cheered us, we trusted, brought despair to our foe ; the 
clouds were breaking away, and at last there was sunshine in 
our path ; the dark path we had trodden for so many months 
at last emerging into glorious light. Proudly and buoyantly 
we tramped through Frederick to form in closed lines and 
listen to the reading of Washington's Farewell Address. And 
we were more than ever aroused to the conviction, that truly 
it was a great thing to live in this age and add one's might to 
this work. 

Everything was hoped from Gen. McClellan, everything 
believed possible through him ; and so sure did I, for one, feel 
in him and his conduct, that I sneered in derision at the anxiety 
of the politicians, heeded not the clamor about giving the coun- 



68 

try confidence or making the paper promises of the Government 
as valuable as gold. 

On the 25 th of February we were ordered to be in readiness 
to march, but the 27th came before we left our winter home. 
As we moved out for Frederick to take the cars for Harper's 
Ferry, again returning to that spot from whence so lately we 
had turned our backs, the men seemed almost wild with ex- 
citement ; and as for mc, with a full heart I exclaimed, " How 
sad and desolate were wc in Virginia then, how sublime and 
triumphant now." 



